Poverty First: Teach First’s response to the White Working Class Educational Outcomes Inquiry

At Teach First, we believe that in order to close the attainment gap, child poverty must be eradicated so that no child’s wealth and circumstance stand in the way of them reaching their potential.

While there are many children who grow up in low-income households and still achieve outstanding grades, the data trend points to the additional difficulties that young people growing up in poverty have to face.

We see that children who grow up in families with more money on average significantly outperform their peers in almost every ethnic group measured in the data.

At the same time, we recognise that there are different barriers faced by different communities.

The data points to this, with different groups of pupils eligible for free school meals seeing very different outcomes in terms of their attainment at school, which is not explained purely by geography or family income.

What we found

To understand more about the possible reasons behind this, we spoke to 10 headteachers in ‘white working-class’ areas, defined by higher-than-average White and higher-than-average free school meals pupil populations. Our findings showed both distinct challenges and common themes.

The most consistent and starkest issues were:

• low attendance
• lack of parental trust in school due to negative experiences
• lack of job and further education options exacerbated by geographical isolation and poor transport connections

What needs to change

For policymakers wanting to address these issues and improve attainment for pupils in these communities, we believe the most effective interventions would be to:

• increase funding for schools serving low-income communities so they can invest in strategies which improve belonging and attendance, such as implementing the new enrichment guidelines and hiring well-staffed pastoral teams and attendance officers
• introduce targeted incentives for employers in rural and coastal cold spots to offer meaningful work experience, apprenticeships, and long-term partnerships with schools
• produce guidance on how schools can effectively engage with parents as well as grandparents, who in many cases take an active role in their grandchild’s education

Eliminating educational inequality for all

Eliminating educational inequality is not a zero-sum game between different groups of children and should not be positioned as such.

We believe that the interventions outlined above and in the report will help all children in low-income and geographically isolated communities, regardless of their ethnicity or heritage. 

Read our full analysis and policy recommendations in the report.

Download the full report

Learn more about The Inquiry into White Working Class Educational Outcomes taskforce.