Income and attainment are linked, why?

[Arkadia]

This article is just out:

I saw this on the BBC and thought you should see it:

Closing disadvantage gap will take 'over a century' - www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-44927942

Nothing new really, but I often wonder, why is attainment linked to income and not to parental involvement or school choice? I remember seeing a documentary on the BBC where it was stated, but not explained, that parental involvement does not matter, only income is a good predictor of how well you will fare at school. There was also a ted talk on the matter I seem to remember...
Anyway, my question is, why is income deemed SO key? Why are kids from rich but totally uninvolved parents in theory more likely to do well than kids from poor, but involved parents? One could say that it is the school because the rich parent tend to send their offspring to schools where parents are generally involved and in so doing they benefit from some kind of herd effect. But if that is the case, what matters is still the parent, and the school while the money is simply a side issue.
I am not talking about children from addicts parents or in the foster system and such like, but normal NOT well off families. Why should they be at such a disadvantage?

Not read all the posts but access to better quality foods prior to and during pregnancy probably helps.

Arkadia: I did read the link hence my talking about the lower grades attained by pp on benefits. If you can build enough grammar schools for self selection, please do. Around me everyone would want to go to one!The remaining schools would be very unappealing - and empty! What a ridiculous suggestion. They would not be grammar schools then, would they? I’m not especially defending Grammars but there is no evidence to suggest, with the current arrangements for admission, that pp children, in the main, could take advantage of them. What would be wrong in trying to make the vast majority of all schools good? Then there would not be a need to move house or play the system regarding admissions.

Looking at the exclusion numbers today, how many of these children should have had a better education much earlier. What about all the ones in managed moves and home tuition? One thing that struck me about this is how badly we need special units for many more children. Where teachers and staff understsnd these children, they do much better. Intervention needs to happen a lot earlier. Not YR. There is ample evidence to show that some children are already significantly behind in YR. This needs to be picked up and addressed by Health Visitors and Social Services and far more interventions put in virtually from birth.

It’s not first time mums where the problem is. It’s mum’s with number 5, when the first 4 are in care! Or dad’s in prison.

Honestly I think that is a bit of a stereotype. Sure stereotypes exist for a reason but they don’t really get to the complexity of the situation. I had middle class parents, one of two kids. Social services came round a few times - even completely ignored a bag of weed on the floor when they visited. I mean middle class right. Not a problem.

We had chocolate bars for breakfast because my mum rushed us to school (usually late) when she woke up and got them at a newsagent on the way. At home time I can’t count the number of times I had to break into the house because mum was out (she didn’t have a job but she did lots of activities - drama, music, going out with friends etc - dad worked away during the week) and never remembered to get me a key and kept locking the door after I put it on the latch because I didn’t have a key. I mean me and my autistic (yes!) brother basically had to fend for ourselves. No I didn’t do great at school but I was never going to be illiterate (learned to read on my own long before starting school) although my brother is still basically functionally illiterate. But hey we were middle class so no one noticed or cared. When I was 16 I went to a concert and didn’t come home for a week and when I finally called home to get money for a ticket they said “oh we thought you’d left home”. My main memories from years of my life is my brother and mother constantly screaming emotional blackmail at each other interspersed with occasional breakthrough physical violence.

It’s not all benefit underclass types who have dysfunctional lives. But for some reason it’s mainly the poor who end up suffering the most when they do. Despite basically being treated as an adult from age 10 or so onward my upbringing didn’t really leave me with any disadvantage in adulthood (even with a mediocre education).

High achievers get screwed over by the current education system tbh. Some are making little progress year to year due to breadth not depth policies then getting bored and zoning out or misbehaving. If they are hitting end of year targets at the start of the year and aren’t allowed to be taught next years curriculum wtf do they do?

Vocabulary is key to educational success. It is not just about talking (although that obviously helps) , but the quality of the vocabulary and the concepts that are discussed. Children with educated parents will tend to hear higher level vocabulary, the quality of the discourse will tend to be at a higher level and will prepare the children for expectations of traditional examinations.

Unfortunately, the gap between children who arrive at school with an impoverished vocabulary and their peers usually widens, increasing their disadvantage.

In my opinion, one aspect we should consider is the quality of language used in children’s TV and on the media in general. This has really dumbed down in recent years, so,whereas children would have heard high quality vocabulary on programmes like Jackanory, this is no longer the case in either children’s or adult tv and radio. Obviously this isn’t the solution but is one area that could be improved.

The parenting I described is far more prevalent in this day and age. Too many hippy type people are home schooling - at least you got to school Die? Were there lots of children like you? Persistent lateness would be followed up now and SS always take a view on risk which has toughened up in recent years. Also do you think you should have been removed from your parents and, if not, what should have happened? If you took every child away from dope smoking parents, you would need about 1m more foster parents!

I don’t think I should have been removed no, but That wasn’t my point really. My point was that if I’d had the same parents - or even better parents - but poor and not middle class I’d have been significantly worse off. It’s not really the dope, just the general overall neglect that was the issue but I’m absolutely sure it was better than going into care. And I still love my parents who realistically never intended having children and didn’t really know what they were doing.

I don’t think school did me much good really either tbh (for my parents it was just free childcare). I attempted suicide once in the hope I’d be committed so I didn’t have to go to school, sadly the psych at the hospital saw right through me and sent me home.

Thinking about it the people in the lowest paid sectors do seem to be worse off than they were in the past possibly due to high housing costs. I used to be really judgy of "benefit scroungers" but having seen how badly off low income families or single individuals are it does seem like a lot of jobs are a waste of time. Very demotivating for people in that situation.

There is such an undercurrent on this thread of people are poor because they won’t do whatever they need to do not to be poor.

Or, if not that, certainly of there being deserving and undeserving poor..

These things may or may not be true. But even if they are true, it should not apply to how children are treated. Not least because it’s in everyone’s best interest for the future not to have a resentful underclass with justifiable grievances....,

My children are screwed then because although I gained two good degrees I'm a writer and piss poor.

Seriously though I think one of the mAin things is attitude towards education. How much a household values education and perceives it as the most important thing.

Time too- enriching activities. Being able to figure out and deal with problems. Family support that includes money, cushion should things go tits up etc etc

“My children are screwed then because although I gained two good degrees I'm a writer and piss poor.”

You are just saying that, aren’t you? You do understand the point? I’m sure you do- but I felt I had to check......

Well I was joking that's why I added "seriously".

But there are obviously many points on the bell curve that would demonstrate that economically poor children might have educated parents who value their education and their children succeed.

And of course there are the wealthy parents who's children leave school at 16 with very few GCSEs because they've always been told they have a job at the family business.

"Time too- enriching activities" time can be in short supply if you're working two or three lowly paid jobs in an attempt to keep your head above water. Zero hour contracts and seasonal workers care just as much about their families as those who are better paid.

“Well I was joking that's why I added "seriously".”

Sorry! It’s just that on threads like this there are always people pointing out the extreme ends of the bell curve as proof positive that poverty makes no didfference to children’s outcomes. It gets frustrating!

No I completely agree that poverty is such a massively complex issue for children and even if we gave every parent the same amount of money, the outcomes for the children wouldn't always change.

I'm not sure why my link made grammar schools seem like a solution to be honest. I suppose thats the beauty of stats - so many different conclusions.

I was really trying to illustrate that pupil premium children, as a cohort, were disadvantaged and different than just a low income as a cohort (individuals of course will perform better or worse).

The school I work has invested heavily in reducing the language gap as being the biggest barrier to learning. I hope it works.

I absolutely see part of my job as a primary school teacher as being ‘in loco money’!

Vocabulary, enrichment, confidence, ambition - I see it as part of my role to provide these for all my class - but especially for the pp children.

Interesting thread.

But it is partly at least to do with your norms, isn’t it? I suspect for many, if you lost all your money tomorrow and couldn’t afford a train ticket to the beach, your children would still achieve because you would still be middle class.

That’s the same the other way too.

I think Pupil Premium is a total red herring.

Its a multitude of things that add up.

I was a smart kid from a poor but engaged household. So we had a house full of books, I could read fluently at two, but no one had been to uni and we had no idea how to navigate ‘the system.’ Crap sink schools, zero expectations at school but supportive home.

When I did get to uni I found the academic work easy enough - what was truly alienating was the social capital others had that I lacked totally. I almost had a breakdown my first year because of this - it was a very odd experience.

If my parents had been less engaged, or I’d been less smart/stubborn or we’d had a chaotic household I’d have sunk. No doubt in my mind about that.

Now I’m married and have kids and we are in a higher (not insanely high, just comfy) income bracket, and the kids are growing up in a bilingual household.

I see constantly things I do for ds or that he gets to do that I would simply never have had on my radar. The language gap was never an issue for me because I was a voracious reader but I can see how it happens and how it disadvantages. At work I can see who reads and who doesn't because their language skills are poles apart and I see those people interact with higher management in a totally different way than I do. I have a very neutral/RP accent and am fairly eloquent and I’ve been told I’m hard to place - ie they cannot tell I’m from a sink estate in Yorkshire, I might be ‘one of them’ and so I’m treated differently.

Rambly post, so sorry, but income links to so many things - status, how you speak, the cultural and social milieu that influences you. It’s not purely money=success. It’s what money is often (not always) an indicator of.

And of course if you’re poor you’re not stupid. I was poor, I’m not stupid. So much of poverty is structural. The point is that poverty is bloody hard to get out of and a child starting from a poorer background is starting with a massive disadvantage.

I’d like to see equality of opportunity - much better investment in pre schools, Scandinavian style. There the system is that everyone, from the poorest to royalty goes to the same schools. Kids get fed, everyone can afford it. it’s mainly play based but they accrue those experiences, the language skills, etc all together.

As so many others have said, a parent can be as involved as is possible (my mum was), but if you can't afford to eat well, if you're living in a cold damp house, if you have to spend an hour going to the library because you can't afford the books, then it adds a huge drag factor to anything you do.

Whereas, if you have the income, then the most hands off parent will be paying for you to go to clubs, to extra lessons, to have any equipment you need - your way in life is greased.

Plus, if there's one thing I've really had re-enforced as I've got older, it's not what you know, but who you know that makes the difference.

why do you feel that?
it seems weird doesn't it - like it doesn't make sense

Whereas, if you have the income, then the most hands off parent will be paying for you to go to clubs, to extra lessons, to have any equipment you need - your way in life is greased.

Yep my mum who left me outside in the rain for hours after school because I didn’t have a key also sent me to music theory class, a whole list of instruments I never practiced and quit one after the other, drama class, pottery, scouts, every summer holiday till I was old enough to be left alone I went to camps where I got to do all kinds of activities and see all sort of places.

me?

It's because I remember back at school, there were kids who could get work experience at useful places through parents, and there were those who took what was offered and ended up sweeping up for a week.

There were those who had holiday jobs at parent's firms, and those who were on the tills at Asda until 10pm 3 nights a week all year.

If you're looking for work, and your mate can get you 600/day consultancy, vs. your mate who can get you casual labour on a building site.

Individually, it often doesn't seem that big, but it is the difference between grit and grease on the slide of your life.

Yep my mum who left me outside in the rain for hours after school because I didn’t have a key also sent me to music theory class, a whole list of instruments I never practiced

Exactly - and let me be clear - I'm not saying it's good at all - and it's not going to be good for the child's mental health, it's like the stately homes thread stuff here.