Teaching and Child Poverty in Scotland: Closing the Attainment Gap

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Tackling poverty has become a central focus in Scottish education over the years. In the past decade, it has been given great prominence within government policy and attainment initiatives to support every child to ensure they succeed in life and ensure equity of achievement in education.

However, Mowat (2017) argued that the current standing policies are not having enough impact on closing the attainment gap in Scotland and there has perhaps been too much of a focus put on attainment results, where the government have simply ‘thrown money at the problem’ and placed all accountability on schools to fix themselves. Likewise, Sosu and Ellis (2014) suggests there is clear evidence of a persistent gap in attainment between pupils from the most and least deprived areas in Scotland – this gap starting from as early as pre-school and continuing to impact right through secondary school to later adulthood.

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Although evidence does swing towards the ineffective side, both Sosu and Ellis (2014) and McCluskey (2017) have proposed potential areas for intervention to support closing the poverty-related attainment gap in Scotland – student participation, parental engagement and teacher-student relationships. It is clear that a reorganisation and improvement in government policy stronger built upon research-based evidence is needed to close the attainment gap and provide equity in Scottish education. This would drive a deeper understanding to the negative effects of poverty that manifold in schools.

It is anticipated that the discussion to follow will provide insights into the complex nature of poverty and its implications within Scottish education. In addition, this essay aims to look at some of the key issues facing children from deprived backgrounds in schools and discuss whether some of the key government attainment initiatives that aim to close the ‘attainment gap’, are actually working and are transpiring into schools to give them the education they deserve.

Poverty and Policy in Scottish Education

The term poverty can be simply construed in different ways by different people. In Scotland, living in poverty is defined as ‘being on a low income, compared to average family’ (Scottish Government, 2016). However, poverty is truly complex and can manifest in different ways within education. The detrimental effects that living in poverty can inflict on child’s ability to succeed in education are well established. Jensen (2009) proposes that the most significant risk factors for children raised in poverty are emotional and social challenges, acute and chronic stressors, cognitive lags, and health and safety issues. Likewise, a child’s behaviour in school is often a reflection of their home-life. All of these elements combined can present an extraordinary challenge to not only academic and social success but can persist into post-education negatively impacting career prospects and employability (Howieson and Iannelli, 2008). Therefore, it is imperative that if need be, intervention is taken as early as possible to support less-advantaged children and young adults to reach their potential to succeed in school. This reinforces the importance of teachers gaining a stronger awareness and deeper understanding of poverty’s effects on school performance to create an empathetic and supportive school culture that offers equity for every child that walks through its doors (Jensen, 2009).

Poverty is a problem that is facing many teachers in Scotland as currently 1 in 4 children are raised in poverty and by 2030, it is predicted that more than 1 in 3 children in Scotland will be living in poverty (Reed and Stark, 2018). Furthermore, the effects of poverty have demonstrated its impact on key aspects of student performance with the extent to that it differs between the most and least deprived students in Scottish schools (Scottish Government, 2017). Statistical data postulated by the Scottish Government for the academic year of 2018-19 showed that across all primary schools, there is a 19% average difference between literacy and numeracy attainment. Whereas, there is a 14% difference within the broad education phase of secondary school, and this trajectory persists into the senior years. There was almost a 40% difference between the most and least deprived, with achieving and leaving school with at least one higher (Scottish Government, 2020). As this has proved its impact on Scottish education from the perspective of all levels, this has called for support from the Scottish government to provide remedial frameworks for local authorities and schools to implement in their practice to address academic underachievement linked with poverty.

Currently there are a range of government policies and strategies established in Scotland, that have been designed to tackle the effects of poverty in education i.e. Scottish Attainment Challenge, Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC), Child Poverty Strategy For Scotland, and Developing The Young Work Force (DYW) – all interconnected and underpinned by the National Framework Improvement.

In the UK, the Child Poverty Act was established in 2010 – with the ambitious aim of ‘eradicating’ child poverty by 2020 (Kennedy, 2010). This led to the obligation of the Scottish government to create the Child Poverty Strategy For Scotland in 2011 and subsequently, a 2014 revision that continues to build on the actions of its preceding act (Scottish Government, 2014). Although, the initial aims were to completely eliminate poverty in Scotland by 2020, additional government policies have been developed to further support these with more realistic targets to ‘reduce’ the number of children living in poverty – The Child Poverty Bill and Every Child, Every Chance: The Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2018-2022 (Scottish Government, 2018).

The Every Child, Every Chance strategy has made more effort to tackle poverty with a more holistic approach and support more of different effective aspects such as parental employment, tackling low pay rates, disabled parents, health service, social security, closing the gender pay gap and improving work place equality, costs of living, school clothes and equipment costs, childcare, and many more. The outcomes for this strategy in the last two years has publicised an estimated total investment spend of over £527 million for 2018-2019 and £672 million for 2019-2020, for children living in poverty in Scotland (Scottish Government, 2019; 2020).

Despite that child poverty was not simply ‘eradicated’ by 2020 and there was a significant increase in child poverty between 2015-2020 (Reed and Stark, 2018), the more realistic principles set within the Every Child, Every Chance strategy has shown a positive effect of this trend and has been further strengthened by the child-centred government policy Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC), which aims to provide a common-ground framework for educational practitioners to measure and interpret child wellbeing in schools. This is contended to be unique from other UK national frameworks due to its universal practicality to understanding children’s needs, whole country implementation and national transformational plan, and Scotland’s distinctive approach to policy making (Coles et al., 2016).

Explicitly attempting to tackle the differences in attainment outcomes between the most and least deprived students in Scotland, the Scottish Attainment Challenge was initiated in early 2015 to bring more priority to resolving the poverty-related attainment gap and achieving equity in Scottish education. High attainment is perceived as key factor of life prospects and the gap is considered to be much more difficult to tackle in later stages of life – consequently imposing a detrimental effect on individuals, communities and society (McCluskey, 2017). However, it does seem that this approach doesn’t actually take into account all of the different socio-economic constraints that effect families in poverty and perhaps, focuses too much on purely attainment outcomes. Mowat (2018) argued that rather than focussing narrowly upon attainment outcomes, suggested that this particular initiative needs to adapt to a more holistic approach that encompasses a constructive partnership with higher education bodies, government, local authorities and schools, to develop researched-informed practice that will address the impact upon the learning outcomes of children and the inequalities in society in a more pragmatic way.

Likewise, Sinclair and McKendrick (2014) argued that there is potential for tackling child poverty at a more localised level, by utilisation of local authorities and community planning partnerships to develop effective shared local poverty strategies. However, this proposition is constrained by the current economic and political conditions that have been set by both, the UK and Scottish governments. This has concurrently given limited space for local authorities to control their budget allocation for education. Consequently, this led to just 5% budget distribution on the basis of social deprivation levels and diminishing funding availability that is directly aimed at closing the national attainment gap (Sosu and Ellis, 2014).

While child poverty is projected to hit a 20 year high in the next few years (Christie, 2019), a constructive partnership between government and local authorities could pave the path forward to tackle child poverty more effectively at both, a local and national level. This would more likely support a more realistic approach to ‘eradicate’ child poverty as it offers more a systematic intervention of child poverty policy within the most deprivation of Scotland. An appreciation of the impact of current funding provisions would give both government and local bodies, a better understanding of how current policies could focus more efficiently and effectively on the poverty-related attainment gap in Scotland.

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