Poverty

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.