Schools with 20 per cent or more pupils from poor backgrounds see lower attainment for all children

Schools with 20 per cent or more of pupils from poor backgrounds see lower attainment for all children, a global study has found.

Research by Lancaster University found that attainment for all pupils in a UK school falls if as few as one in five students are classed as disadvantaged.

The study, which compared educational attainment across nine countries, concluded that pupils in the UK are more affected by the social background they come from than any other factor.

Researchers said the figures showed that the "tipping point" at which a school became a "sink school" which holds its pupils back was based on "quite a low proportion of disadvantaged students going to that school".


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/02/schools-20-per-cent-pupils-poor-backgrounds-see-lower-attainment/

I can only point out that the primary school I went to had many children from poor backgrounds, yet half managed to get to grammar school, me included. My parents, I can't speak for the others spent a lot of time reading to me and teaching me the alpahbet, basic words cat, mat etc and how to count to ten before I went to school, I could also write my name a bit scribbly it must be said. It was the same story in the grammar school many from poor backgrounds, some from better off homes and a few from rich homes. We had people having free dinners and money to help with uniforms. We had a good reputation with some pupils making it to Oxford or Cambridge every year and many to good other Unis. The rest of us managed to get good jobs with banks, civil service, Lab staff etc. Incidentally we had a good ratio of girls going on to higher education in science, advanced maths, the law and medicine. My parents rarely took on HP but they did so to buy a set of encyclopedia while I was in primary school, I used them a lot in fact I still have them, I loved to find out about things. So I suppose I'm thinking parents can't afford the internet, the equivalent of encycolpedia nowadays I suppose, and I rarely see books in any house I go to these days, maybe its that I don't know.

Vintage wrote:I can only point out that the primary school I went to had many children from poor backgrounds, yet half managed to get to grammar school, me included. My parents, I can't speak for the others spent a lot of time reading to me and teaching me the alpahbet, basic words cat, mat etc and how to count to ten before I went to school, I could also write my name a bit scribbly it must be said. It was the same story in the grammar school many from poor backgrounds, some from better off homes and a few from rich homes. We had people having free dinners and money to help with uniforms. We had a good reputation with some pupils making it to Oxford or Cambridge every year and many to good other Unis. The rest of us managed to get good jobs with banks, civil service, Lab staff etc. Incidentally we had a good ratio of girls going on to higher education in science, advanced maths, the law  and medicine. My parents rarely took on HP but they did so to buy a set of encyclopedia while I was in primary school, I used them a lot in fact I still have them, I loved to find out about things. So I suppose I'm thinking parents can't afford the internet, the equivalent of encycolpedia nowadays I suppose, and I rarely see books in any house I go to these days, maybe its that I don't know.

But that was then Vintage and agree with you in that many kids, including me came from poor backgrounds. Yedt still did very well. To me there is a lack of ethos today to do well with youngsters. The reality is my family ensured all of us were learning from the easliest ages.

I think we have seen a culture shift in attitudes, which maybe based around a victimhood. That is so poorly being used onto children, if they come from a certain background. That they cannot succeed in life, when they very well can. I also think how parents raise children, is also a massive factor in the early ages, to the level of understanding young children have. Technology is also a factor here to me, why kids are not learning from the earliest ages. As technology is being used as a babysitter.

This is why studies like this do not dwele deep enough into the reasons that a number of poor children could be bringing down a school. To me, there is miles more to this.