Outside school activities can help break the link between poverty and education

By Warwick Sharp

It is a well known fact that low income often leads to low educational performance. Young people from deprived backgrounds tend to feel more anxious and less confident about education. Resentment and disengagement can set in from as early as 9 and feed into disadvantage later in life.

Much has been done in recent years to break this link between poverty and education. The huge investment in schools by Labour has had a big impact with some remarkable successes. The achievement at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney where 84% of students scored 5 or more A* to C including English and Maths shows the relationship can be defeated.

However, are we neglecting a crucial factor that determines why poverty leads to poorer educational outcomes? Some studies show that only 14% of individuals’ performance is accounted for by school quality. So surely even a relentless focus on delivery of the school curriculum can never completely solve the problem.

Out of school activities have been shown to have significant relevance to education. But those brought up in deprived areas are often denied these important learning experiences. At best, the activities they receive are based in school, therefore simply extending the school day rather than being effectively differentiated from the school context.

Worthwhile and engaging activities outside of school can transform attitudes and aspirations. My own teaching experience in a challenging school has shown how much learning (or indeed unlearning) can take place outside of the classroom. Accounts of students’ typical experiences after school, at weekends and in holidays ranged from the impressive to the truly depressing and heartbreaking.

Provision of this key learning area depends largely on decisions of local councils, individuals, and charities. Camden Council for instance has just dramatically cut youth funding for the Maiden Lane Community Centre which will now leave some young people with literally nothing to do outside of school. In Gateshead, on the other hand, the local Golf Club has filled the gap by opening its doors to young people for free. These examples show how erratic, contrasting, and changeable local delivery of out of school activities is.

This is tremendously unfair and makes it much harder to overcome the link between poverty and education across Britain. It is not enough to rely on every school being as outstanding as Mossbourne Community Academy. Labour needs to complement the progress made by our schools with more youth funding and homework clubs for the most vulnerable. We need a national shift in focus to improving out of school activities as well as improving schools. Only then will education in deprived areas lift more young people out of poverty.