Response from School-Home Support to the report published on the Underachievement of White Working Class children

Here at School-Home Support we know from our work over the last 30 years that to really impact on children’s education, the very best thing to do is to engage their parents. If you can do that you will change attitudes and aspirations inter-generationally; parents will often return to learning themselves. The Institute of Education researched SHS’s work supporting the parents of children on reading and maths recovery schemes, and found longitudinal improvements.  It concluded that, as a result of these children engaging with their education from an early age, their own children will not need additional interventions.

Our work tackles the underlying issues children from disadvantaged backgrounds face, such as poor housing; adult worklessness; mental and physical ill-health; debt; alcohol and substance misuse; domestic violence and not least, poverty.

It is very hard to prioritise getting your child to school if you are about to be evicted. It’s very hard to concentrate in school if you are worried that your father will be unconscious when you get home. It’s hard not to respond with a violent outburst when peers tease you, if you’ve watched your mother beaten the night before.

Targeted thoughtfully, the Pupil Premium can have huge benefits for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, but there is no point in putting on extra literacy support if the very children who need it most aren’t attending school.

One of the most effective uses of the Pupil Premium is targeted family support, getting children into school, ready to learn. This may mean collecting them from home, providing a school uniform and feeding them. Once they are in school, returning to their home to talk to a parent will expose the underlying problems. Support to help sort those out will not only change the life chances of the individual child but also their siblings and the generations to come.

We welcome this report from the Education Select Committee, particularly the recognition that “More work is needed to understand what interventions can be most effective in improving parental engagement, early language stimulus and other home based conditions which can set children up to succeed in school and in life.”

The evidence base of School-Home Support practitioners shows clearly what can be done in this respect.

More from the report here.

SHS responds to publication of The Debt Trap

At School-Home Support we welcomed the publication of The Debt Trap. As the leading UK charity dealing with the numerous reasons behind school pupils’ poor attendance, we see first-hand how devastating family debt can be on a child’s education, and support any campaign that raises awareness of the issue.

In 2012/13, almost 300,000 school-age children and young people in England were recorded as ‘persistently absent’, meaning they missed at least 15% of school. While 15% might not sound a lot, the effects on a child’s life chances can be catastrophic – we have existed for thirty years, and in that time we have seen the real lives behind Government statistics about poor attendance leading to poor exam results, which lead in turn to unemployment and lives spent on the margins of society.

Our solution to this problem is simple and successful: we have a team of dedicated practitioners in schools, who examine the reasons behind persistent absenteeism and work with families to overcome them.

The problems are diverse, but practitioners often find that money worries are at the root of absenteeism.

The Debt Trap alluded to the struggles faced by children in families with problem debt when they are at school, giving examples of children whose learning, friendships or ability to participate in extra-curricular activities is affected.

Quite right. Our practitioners see this all the time, and our Welfare Fund provides short-term grants for school trips and uniforms that parents could otherwise not afford.  But the report didn’t talk about the children who aren’t there at all, whose family poverty is so overwhelming that school just isn’t a priority any more.

If a child’s parents cannot afford a school uniform, the child, who doesn’t fit in and is bullied by peers, will not want to go to school. The parents have more important things to worry about than school if they’re threatened with eviction and don’t know where their next meal is coming from, so their child’s attendance falls down the priority list.

Pastoral care staff in schools need support to recognise and deal with these children, who worry about their parents, and want to stay home and help rather than go to school. Others simply fade into the background because their parents are so stressed.

 This happened to Finn*, 11, who suddenly stopped going to class. Our practitioner found that his mother Nicky* had debts as a result of escaping a violent relationship with a man who controlled her finances. She was being regularly harassed by aggressive doorstep moneylenders, demanding repayment of loans. She met the payments by borrowing from other moneylenders, and had accumulated interest of more than £10,000. She couldn’t afford to eat, and she wasn’t sleeping. So it’s hardly surprising that she struggled to think about Finn’s schooling.

Our first priority was to negotiate a realistic payment option with Nicky’s creditors. Nicky will be paying off her debts for a long time, but she can cope, and she has a practitioner to turn to for emotional support. She is in touch with a support group for victims of domestic violence, and the help she’s received means she can support Finn, whose attendance and achievement are back up to the expected standard. 

Persistent absenteeism needs to be considered within discussions from all sectors about financial education, compulsory within England’s National Curriculum from this September. Those children who are not there are likely to be the ones most in need of the classes.

Nicky, and others like her, tell us that they trust School-Home Support because we are independent. We are non-judgmental advocates with links to agencies, but we are not part of those agencies and therefore, in Nicky’s own words, we are ‘not the enemy’. This goes for other charities offering similar support, giving us a unique ability to work gently with defensive parents, who can feel victimised and blamed for their circumstances.