Children living in low-income families are not all alike, and many are very successful in school. It is well documented that children growing up in poorer families tend to have lower levels of educational attainment and participation in post-compulsory education than their more privileged peers. It is the children from some of the low-income families that will qualify for pupil premium money which, if used effectively, is a key part of schools strategies for closing he gaps. However what about those children who find school hard that do not qualify for pupil premium?
Previous work undertaken for JRF by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the University of Bristol
(Goodman and Gregg, 2010) aimed to clarify the nature of the existing
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• The school’s approach: Allocation of funding towards pupils from the poorest backgrounds and direct teaching support to children falling behind.
However, although these factors may play an important part towards understanding why we have a gap in attainment the conclusions did not pinpoint the exact factor causing the gap.
Another piece of research for JRF (Kintrea et al., 2011) challenged the idea that poorer children and their parents have low aspirations. It actually found that poorer children and families often have high aspirations and that many want to go to university or get professional, managerial and skilled jobs.
It indicated that poorer young people thought school was very important and that their parents tried to support them in any way they could.
The study found that for a lot of these children the problem was actually how to reach their goals.
It also found that there was much more need for parents and children to be offered support with their educational and reaching their future goals.
Currently, one in four children in the UK is growing up in poverty (DWP 2009). For these children, the impact of poverty on their chances of educational and life success can be great. Even though the average overall test scores have improved, there still remains large differences in educational achievement according to socio-economic status, with family income and status by far the most
Although there are many factors that contribute to a quality education the one that provokes the most controversy, is the concept of equal funding for every school. While money is not the sole component of education, it is certainly important. Recently I have become very intrigued in this topic. I am passionate about pursuing my educational goal to become a teacher. I also work in an after-school program at an elementary school in Concord, with my own class made up of bright minded kindergartners and first graders. I have seen that in this schools community there is a very low-income rate, causing the school to not get proper funding. As a future teacher, I am determined to do what I can to solve this problem.
(2007) indicated a need for extensive policy interventions if the links between poverty and poor educational outcomes were to be improved. They noted there were no situations that could be fixed without a long-term approach to improving the education of those children in such situations. The key points from the Joseph Rowntree research was that initiatives such as Excellence in Cities (DfE 1999), Sure Start (DfE 1998), Educational Maintenance Allowance (DfE 2006) and Full Service Extended Schools (DCSF 2006) focused mainly on immediate social factors and the problems they cause directly for individuals and communities. These interventions were implemented in a piecemeal fashion and I can find no concrete evidence that there is anything other than a very partial impact in breaking the link between poverty and poor educational attainment. My hypothesis remains that provided children experience their learning guided by a ‘good’ teacher alongside having their basic needs met and supportive parents, there is every chance of them attaining their projected targets without interventions which are often in short bursts and short
Children from low-income familes are more likely than their counterpart to struggle with attendence and compliance issues, receive poor support from their familes and fall behind in their education. The underlying reasons behind this brief list of the challenges faced by low income children are plentiful, and largely outside the scope of this review. There are potentially eleven million children under the age of three that are at risk for
Poor children are twice as likely to repeat a grade and drop out of school than non-poor children are as well as having a 1.4 higher chance of having a learning disability that can affect their achievement. Additional data shows that children who live in households below the poverty threshold have test scores that are substantially lower than those of children living in households with incomes above it. The lowest of scores are seen in children who are extremely poor (those who live in families with income below 50% of the poverty threshold). Early childhood is the stage in which income matters the most according to
Education is and always will be very important in building a strong foundation in ones life. This is especially true in terms of looking at our future generation. They want our youth to be educated. The responsibilities are take care the children, provide the teaching and support each child needs to meet those expectation. The US government should give more money and resources to urban schools because urban youth grow up in poverty. They have a greater chance of experiencing emotional and social instability and they don’t have supportive family relationships.
Cuthrell et al., (2010) reported that although children living in or near the poverty level attend school, their socio-economic background places them academically behind their peers as compared to those students from middle and upper class homes living outside the levels of poverty. Howland et al., (2006) contend that students residing in poverty will continually experience an increase in achievement gaps throughout the education process as a result of their literacy deficiencies, skill gaps, and lack of exposure to educationally stimulating events and activities.
( 2014 ) suggest that a child’s emotional health is far more important than academic ability, or economic status, stating that family income accounts only for 0.5% of the variance of life satisfaction, but (Faith and Thompson, 2009) argue that Growing up in poverty is one of the strongest and most persistent unfavourable predictors of children’s well-being. Poverty has ‘multiple diverse impacts on children developmental outcomes’ (P203 emotion in middle childhood). Children from the poorest countries suffer from malnutrition or disease which could be prevented by the correct infrastructure or medical intervention. In Britain, children born into poverty are likely to have a low birthweight more prone to illness. Growing up in poverty affects children development from birth and has lasting impacts throughout life. Poverty causes children to be disadvantaged even in a loving stable home where the children have secure attachments. These children tend to do worse in cognitive and language tests at 4 years old and (waldfogael and washbroke 2010 in P.204) found on starting school they can be up to 18 months behind their richer counterparts. Poorer children are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety be more hyperactive and show aggression. The effect of poverty on a childs well being is enormous, children feel the sense of difference in their lives compared to their better off friends, many will avoid social situations as they
These texts clearly show that the high achieving students will not be fine on their own. All the research indicates high achieving students from lower-income families decrease throughout their educational career. Helping students that are high achieving not only helps the students but would also contribute to closing the achievement gap between lower-income and high-income family students.
In this article, Eric Jensen explains why the instruction given to middle-class students do not bring the same outcomes with those from low-income families. According to him, this is because these two types of students are not the same cognitively, socially, emotionally, and behaviorally. He stresses that the poor students find it harder engaging in school than affluent students. Seven aspects in which these two types of students part are presented by Jensen: health and nutrition,
The first indication that shows low social mobility in the contemporary UK is the educational disadvantage. The education system in the UK does not provide equal opportunities for children and youngsters from different social backgrounds. This disparity can be seen in the strong connection between educational achievement and social class (!). The State of the Nation 2016 report published by the Social Mobility Commission revealed that in the last ten years, 500,000 children from less privileged families were not ready for school by age five (!). Furthermore, poorer children have no adequate access to high-quality childcare, although they need it most (!). It therefore appears that children from less privileged backgrounds face disadvantages already before school age, which can have a negative impact on their further educational achievements. For example, looking at th7e results of the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) in 2014, it can be
More importantly, as a teacher myself, I spent a lot of time trying to explain to the kids about the importance of having a higher education. Over the years of working with children and their parents, I have noticed a trend in relation to the values and attitudes towards education from families coming from different socio-economic backgrounds. Parents with higher education always encourage kids to stay on the path and continue on getting education while moving along towards their career goals compared to the parents without any type of education. Since I have my own experience working in
Low Income Equals Low Academic Achievement Some may not want to believe that the world revolves around money, but it does. Goals in life cannot be taken anywhere without money. Money is the most important thing when it comes to quality education. The children from low income families academic performance is highly affected. Low income families struggle with educating their children. Income and wealth can affect educational outcomes in a number of ways. Income has a direct impact on the affordability and accessibility of those educational services which charge fees or if transport and other costs are significant.Low-income students as a group have performed than high-income students on most measures of academic success (Jensen). Family income level affects academic performance.
Low Income Equals Low Academic Achievement Some may not want to believe that the world revolves around money, but it does. Goals in life cannot be taken anywhere without money. Money is the most important thing when it comes to quality education. The children from low income families academic performance is highly affected. Low income families struggle with educating their children. Income and wealth can affect educational outcomes in a number of ways. Income has a direct impact on the affordability and accessibility of those educational services which charge fees or if transport and other costs are significant.Low-income students as a group have performed than high-income students on most measures of academic success (Jensen). Family income level affects academic performance.
Low Income Equals Low Academic Achievement Some may not want to believe that the world revolves around money, but it does. Goals in life cannot be taken anywhere without money. Money is the most important thing when it comes to quality education. The children from low income families academic performance is highly affected. Low income families struggle with educating their children. Income and wealth can affect educational outcomes in a number of ways. Income has a direct impact on the affordability and accessibility of those educational services which charge fees or if transport and other costs are significant.Low-income students as a group have performed than high-income students on most measures of academic success (Jensen). Family income level affects academic performance.
Poverty is a high indicator of social disadvantage (Ewing, 2013, p. 76). In 2012, one in six Australian children were living in poverty (Ewing, 2013, p. 77-78). Low economic status has a negative impact on a child’s education. According to Thomson (2002, p. 3), children from low socio-economic backgrounds are less likely to complete year twelve level of schooling and are more likely to become unemployed than children from middle to high socioeconomic backgrounds. Educators might have a stereotype image that children from low socioeconomic backgrounds are inattentive and have parents who do not value education (Strauss, 2013). This could lead to teachers having low expectations of these students (Ewing, 2013, p. 86). However, children from working class families have different knowledge and skills they bring to the classroom which may not be relevant for school success