The Impact of Poverty

Support Materials

Notes on Leading and Managing Year 4 RAISE Activities

The Impact of Poverty Evidence from the Millennium Cohort Study, a major longitudinal study of childhood development in Britain, has identified differences in the development of children from advantaged and disadvantaged families from as early as nine months. By the age of three, children from disadvantaged backgrounds (defined in terms of the family’s poverty and parents’ low level of education) are up to a year behind children more advantaged families.

This gap in development contributes to the gap in educational attainment as children progress through school. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds tend to start behind their more advantaged peers and tend to fall further behind as they progress through school.

Research demonstrates that the negative impact of deprivation on pupils’ learning and progress increases as the incidence of socio-economic disadvantage increases.

However, work that we have commissioned from the People and Work Unit notes that there is no intrinsic link between deprivation and poor educational attainment. However, this study notes three key factors that make it harder for disadvantaged learners to succeed:

a tendency for weaker cognitive and behavioural development to affect their belief in their ability to learn;
the less effective support they tend to receive from adults, both parents and professionals;
the added negative impact when they attend schools where the level of deprivation presents a high degree of challenge to teaching staff.