Poor children fare worse in GCSE exams

ePolitix.com Stakeholders comment on the news that a league table published by the End Child Poverty Campaign has revealed huge differences in the GCSE attainment of the poorest students in different education authorities across England.

Figures obtained by the End Child Poverty campaign show that in the worst areas fewer than a quarter of the poorest students achieve five good GCSEs.

Party Response: Liberal Democrats

Liberal Democrat schools spokesman Annette Brooke told ePolitix.com:

"After 11 years of a Labour government, most young people are still failing to achieve five good GCSEs including English and Maths.

"If we are going to have a world class education system, we must do more to improve educational achievement in this country - especially among the most disadvantaged children.

"Some children find themselves falling behind long before they even reach GCSE age. Spotting and tackling underachievement in the early years is vital.

"It is time to put an end to the debate over whether exams are getting easier - it's not fair on young people who have worked so hard and rightly want to celebrate.

"A fully independent watchdog that can stand up to government and act as a real guardian of standards, is the only way to put a stop to those claims that education is being 'dumbed-down'."

 

Stakeholder Response: IOE

Professor Alma Harris at the Institute of Education told ePolitix.com:

Although the academic performance of poor children in England has generally increased, the overall achievement gap between those from low- and high-income families persists throughout schooling. Children from poorer families do not on average overcome the hurdle of lower initial attainment associated with living in poverty. Differences in ethnicity, gender, class and economic well-being affect children long before they start school and have a powerful continuing influence as they get older.

To address these deep rooted problems is not easy. However, it is clear that the extent and degree to which parents support their children’s education can offset many of the negative influences of growing up in a poor community. Parents are a crucial and vital component in reversing the pervasive influence of socio-economic status on achievement.

Schools that succeed in engaging families from low-income backgrounds share three key practices. They:

• focus on building trusting collaborative relationships among teachers, families, and community members
• recognise, respect, and address families' needs, as well as class and cultural difference
• embrace a philosophy of partnership where power and responsibility are shared.

In short, engaging parents in learning is the most powerful lever we have to increase students' achievement in our poorest communities. Consequently, resources directed at building school and community relations are more likely to break this cycle than any other form of intervention or initiative.

 

Stakeholder Response: ATL

A spokesman for the Association of Teachers and Lecturers told ePolitix.com:

"Against a backdrop of rising GCSE pass rates, the postcode lottery of GCSE chances for our poorest students attests to the increasing gap between rich and poor in the UK. This is utterly unacceptable in one of the richest nations of the industrialised world.

"The new league table of best and worst places for the poorest students to go to school also shows that the government's anti-poverty initiatives are creating further divisions amongst the poorest sections of our society. Whilst those living in urban areas might be lucky enough to benefit from government investment in their education, the needs of 900,000 poor children and young people in rural areas remain invisible and forgotten.

"What's worse, rather than addressing and removing the obstacles that poor families across the UK collectively experience, the government deserts schools which it has already starved of vital investment to support poor students and which, as a result, fail to reach the minimum achievement targets that have been so arbitrarily imposed by the government. To add insult to injury, many of these schools are now threatened with closure or being replaced with an academy, ignoring how the continued marketisation of our education reinforces social division and segregation on the basis of social class."