Tackling Child Poverty in Schools: a role for school librarians?

a post by Sophie Howes (Senior Policy and Research Officer) for the CPAG blog

Child poverty in the UK

Child poverty in the UK is rising. The Institute for Fiscal Studies projects that child poverty will rise from the current level of 4.1 million to 5.2 million by 2021/22. This is largely due to cuts in the social security system that many children and families rely on. At the same time, other public services have seen significant cutbacks, which can leave families struggling on low incomes with little support.

Increasing child poverty is worrying for schools, because poverty at home is the strongest statistical predictor of how well a child will achieve at school. On average poorer children have worse cognitive, socio-behavioural, physical, and mental health than their better-off peers. They are less likely to do well at school; in 2015 only 33% of students eligible for free school meals got five ‘good’ passes at GCSE (A*-C) compared with 61% of those not eligible. Poorer children are more likely to be persistently absent and four times more likely to be permanently excluded from school, with obvious impacts for their education. Evidence suggests that these impacts are both a result of direct deprivation (e.g. inadequate housing leading to poor sleep or lack of space to do homework, difficulties providing healthy food, less ability to afford computers and extracurricular activities) and the impact of coping with poverty on parents’ mental health.

Whilst this paints a depressing picture, schools don’t have to wait for direction from central government to take action on child poverty. On a local level, there is much that can be done by schools and other key public services to tackle child poverty. At CPAG we have been involved in some projects that focus on working with schools to prevent and mitigate the impact of child poverty on children’s education.

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