The Child Poverty Task Force sets out targets as part of its 10-year strategy to commit to lasting change for children and families.
- Targets include reducing essential costs, increasing incomes, and investing in early years support.
- The framework will look at available levers across government to give children the best start to life.
- The Taskforce will address the drivers of poverty such as helping more parents into work and reducing the negative impacts of poverty.
Jaine Stannard, CEO of School-Home Support, said:
“The announcement of the child poverty strategy marks another significant milestone tackling a key driver of low school attendance, which is robbing the nation’s talented children of a brighter future.
Poverty and school absence are tightly linked. Poverty is a major barrier to good school attendance, and receiving a good education can help children break out of the cycle of poverty. An effective approach to delivering opportunities would address both poverty and school attendance.
We welcome the announcement of the next steps of the taskforce and the publication of the 10-year plan to address child poverty. The child poverty strategy must include effective approaches to improve school attendance to ensure all children have the opportunity to achieve their full potential and break the cycle of poverty to turn the page on child poverty today and in years to come.
According to the official statistics released last week, the school attendance crisis is getting worse, not better, with the number of children missing 50% or more of their education increasing since last year. Failure to tackle the school attendance crisis will have a huge impact on our collective efforts to tackle intergenerational cycles of poverty.
For many children, school is the closest thing to a silver bullet to improve their life chances and to break out of cycles of poverty and deprivation. Schools help to connect children from disadvantaged backgrounds to systems of support as well as giving the best possible chance to achieving future aspirations.
In our recommendations to the Government, we call for attendance to be included in the child poverty strategy. The Government’s strategy for attendance is right – a support-first, family-centric approach which focuses on identifying and supporting the root causes of absence. We welcome the commitment and reforms already in place, but to make a real difference to school attendance we will need both investment and radical collaboration between schools and services in our communities.
As experts in school attendance and family support, we look forward to working with the taskforce to alleviate poverty for families and children and ensure no child misses out on school.”
Poverty and school attendance
- Poverty is a key driving force behind the attendance crisis. Children living in poverty are more likely to be absent from school as poverty can be a barrier to good school attendance.
- Recent Government statistics show that 30% of children face relative poverty, meaning that 4.3 million children are from families who are living on less than 60% of today’s median income.
- Almost 3 in 8 (37.4%) of children eligible for free school meals (usually meaning that their household income is less than £7,400 a year) are persistently absent, compared with 3 in 20 for children not eligible.
Case study
Hope, eight, Heather, six, and Frazer, five, live with their parents and are persistently absent from school. Against a backdrop of severe debt, their mum Beth is struggling to provide the basic essentials including school uniforms.
Beth faces significant struggles everyday, which are compounded by challenges the younger children are facing. Frazer is awaiting an ADHD assessment for challenging behaviour and Heather has hearing loss, requiring the use of hearing aids and the support of a specialist teacher in school.
School-Home Support Practitioner Tina met with Beth and the children to talk through the difficulties they are experiencing and immediately put Beth in touch with agencies that can support her, especially with addressing severe debt.
Tina also helped the family with immediate issues including heating and electric supply, and sourced a local food bank that also provided vouchers to help Beth. She also referred Beth to a sleep practitioner to enable her to make practical changes that have helped the family to cope with everyday life.
Tina made a request to the School-Home Support Welfare Fund to buy all three children uniforms, which has resulted in the children becoming more engaged with school.
Tina continues to work closely to support the whole family which has resulted in a positive change with both parents engaging more with school, including attending school meetings.
Hope, Heather and Fraser are growing in confidence and are showing an improved relationship with school and their fellow peers.
“Great support, always there to help with anything or even if I have questions, tries her very best to support us in the right ways we need help. Can not fault anything she has done to help me and my family.” Beth (mum).