At a general level, home environment in poorer families can have an adverse effect on education in a variety of ways. “Homes which are overcrowded, cold or in general poor condition can affect education through lack of quiet space for study, disturbed sleep and a general negative influence on emotional well-being” (DCSF 2009b)
Overcrowding can have an adverse impact on education, “directly through a lack of space to do homework and in other more indirect ways such as illness which can result from such overcrowding” (ODPM 2004).
Sutton et al (2007) interviewed 42 children in order to understand their lives. 19 of these were referred to as estate children (the term was chosen by the children themselves); all of whom were White. The other 23, private, children attended a fee paying independent school; 20 were White and 3 were from ethnic minority groups. Although both groups of children viewed education as one of the most important aspects of their lives, their actual experience of education was very different. One way this showed up was in the length of their learning day.
They found that the private school children “had long school days (typically 9.00 am to 6.00pm; some stayed at school until after 6pm), put a greater emphasis on homework and were involved in a wide variety of after-school clubs and activities”. In contrast the estate children had “shorter school days (typically 9.00 am to 3.30 pm), were not as focussed on their homework and were involved in fewer after-school clubs and activities”. This is also confirmed by other research.
Lareau (2003), provides many examples of middle class parents who ‘supplement’ their children’s education through paid-for activities as well as through the many conversations they have with them and teach them knowledge, skills or particular way of seeing the world. Evans (2007) makes a similar point about middle class children whose “every minute of their spare time inside and outside of schools (is) filled with structured activities oriented towards learning valuable skills in art, music, sport and drama and so on”.
Free time- organised activities: Sutton et al (2007) in their study of poverty found that the estate (the term chosen by the poor children to define themselves) children took part in fewer organised activities than the private children and could not always afford to take part in them. “Their ability to travel to and from activities was also limited by cost and lack of transport. By contrast, the private children took part in a wide range of activities organised by the school and their parents”. Compared to the estate children, “for private children their free time retains an emphasis on learning”.
The challenge for school is clearly what opportunities to provide and how for young people whose parents are less well off; to compensate for what their parents cannot provide.
To ensure the cost of activities does not act as a barrier for participation of the most disadvantaged pupils, the extended schools subsidy was being rolled out during 2009. The aim of this was to enable the most disadvantaged young people to participate in activities of their choosing. Unfortunately, as distribution decisions were left to local areas, a number were taking the easy option of dividing the money equally across their authorities instead, as was intended to happen, targeting inversely according to the level of disadvantage.
Benefits of education outside the classroom
It is well known that in order to gain the maximum benefit from their education, young people need to form good relationships with their teachers and fellow pupils. For this, they need well developed interpersonal skills and understanding. However, often these skills are developed outside of the school through participation in activities and programmes. Sadly, this is where poorer children miss out as they don’t have as many opportunities for such participation. Therefore, this calls for compensatory measures so that these essential skills for life in school and beyond could be provided in other ways. Otherwise, the young people in question are unlikely to achieve their full potential in school and go on failing to benefit from many opportunities in life generally.
Ofsted have stressed the importance of education outside the classroom (2008). They point out that it leads to “improved outcomes…including better achievement, standards, motivation, personal development and behaviour. It also provides extra depth to pupils’ learning and experience”. They confirmed that many schools relied on contributions from parents and carers to meet the costs of residential and other visits and had given very little thought to alternative ways of financing them. In the schools visited there was a long tradition of asking parents to make a considerable financial contribution to learning outside the classroom, for example, by covering transport costs and entrance fees.
Chowdry et al et al (2009) points out that “young people who participate in positive activities at age 14 tend to have higher test scores at Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 and are significantly less likely to be NEET at age 17 than young people who do not participate in positive activities”.
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