2. The link between poverty and education
• Children growing up in poverty much less likely to do
well at school
– Gap in place by 3yrs
– Expands during primary school
– By 16: 35% FSM children get 5 A*-C GCSE vs 62%
of others
• Low qualifications = less likely to work, more likely to
have low earnings
• Major factor driving poverty in adulthood
– And for the next generation of children
3. JRF’s education programme
• Education and poverty programme since 2005
– Understand reasons for attainment gap
– Explore potential solutions
– Test ideas vs robust evidence
• Understanding drivers of the gaps
– Quantitative research across age groups (published
2010)
• Look at the role of attitudes, aspirations and behaviour
– International reviews + primary research in England
and Scotland (published 2012)
4. Drivers of the early attainment gap
• Big gap between richer and poorer children by age 3
– By 5 children in poverty c.8 months ‘behind’
• 2 elements of this ‘gap’
– Cognitive attainment
– Social and emotional development
• For cognitive gap, ‘home learning environment’ makes a big
difference
• Other differences have no clear link to cognitive development
– But do affect social and emotional development
– Especially health and well-being
5. Attainment gap among 3 year olds
E.g. Reading,
learning
letters/numbers,
nursery
rhymes/songs,
counting,
painting/drawing
E.g. Family
closeness,
conduct
problems,
relating to other
children
Home
learning
environment
Health and
well-being
Family
interaction
Parenting
styles
E.g. Birth
weight, breast
feeding,
mother having
depression
E.g. Regular
bed times
and meal
times
6. The power of good quality services
• Effective Provision of Pre-School Education longitudinal study
shows;
– Home learning environment is important BUT
– High quality pre-school and primary education can compensate
– Especially for children from deprived backgrounds
• Very impressive effects
High quality
pre-school
+
High quality
primary
school
=
Difference as big
as having a
mother with a
degree vs with no
qualifications
7. Services and parents together
• Working with parents = one way high quality
services make a difference
• For most it isn’t about changing parents’
attitudes or aspirations
• Giving better information, support and advice
8. Aspirations are generally high
• Low income families mostly have high aspirations
• When children are born, 97% mothers want them to go to university
– Difference richer and poorer is in how likely they think it is
– By age14; only 53 % of the poorest families think their child will
attend higher education
– 81% amongst the richest
• Sometimes expressed in negative attitudes
• Study in three deprived communities: 85% of pupils aspired to
university
– Only half that many expected to get university qualifications
• Most wanted professional, managerial, skilled jobs
– Labour market couldn’t meet demand!
9. How is parental involvement effective
• Little evidence effect comes from raising parents’
aspirations or changing their attitudes per se
• Equipping parents of young children for
developmental activities
– Reading, games, verbal interaction
– Resources, ideas, support, training
• Enabling & encouraging parents of older children to
– Support at home learning
– Discuss academic activities
– Understand requirements and choices
10. Most interventions pre-school/primary
transition
• Home instruction for parents of pre-school youngsters
(US)
– Language, problem solving, logical thinking, physical, emotional
and social skills
– More enriched home environment (reading materials etc.), higher
parenting ‘self-efficacy’, higher maths scores (but not reading
scores)
• Family literacy initiative (UK)
– 12-week basic skills course for parents, early literacy development
for young children
– Gains in vocabulary, reading and writing & maintained after 2yrs
– Parents better equipped to support children in reading/writing
11. The impact of targeted parental
involvement
• For example Family Learning Programmes focusing
on literacy
– Parents read to children: extra 2 months progress
(similar effect for National Literacy Strategy)
– Parents trained to listen to their children read
produced: extra 4 months of progress
– Parents teach specific reading skills to their children:
over a year’s progress
12. Key issues for parental involvement
• Impact of interventions very mixed
– Depending on exact content, context, groups involved
– Reasons unclear
• Recipe not yet certain
– Active ingredients, ‘dosage’, sub-group effects
– Need for good monitoring & evaluation methods
• Key features seem to include
–
–
–
–
Genuine collaboration between parents & facilitators
Flexible models of partnership with parents in different contexts
Interventions across school, home & other settings
Well structured programmes, support for parents to minimise
drop out
13. Principles for effective engagement
• Engage with parents on own terms
– Cultural mismatch common
– Formal parents’ evenings do little to overcome
• Think about who can do this do this and settings to use
• Develop relationships, tailor to community
• Build parents’ capacity to support learning
14. Contact details
Helen Barnard
Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Tel: 01904 615946
Email: helen.barnard@jrf.org.uk
Twitter: @Helen_Barnard
More information: www.jrf.org.uk/work/workarea/education-andpoverty
