Background and context
Towards an effective and sustainable recovery strategy
Recovery and children’s experiences in school
Increasing formal taught time and amending term patterns
Educational interventions with greater potential to support recovery
Accessing extended services in and through schools
Investment in, and collaboration between, wider children’s services
Tackling child poverty
 

This statement sets out important considerations that should guide the development of recovery strategies for the education system and the wider children and young people’s services sector. It considers:

• policy principles for ensuring the workforce is best placed to support recovery;

• school-level interventions to support children’s educational, social, physical and emotional development and wellbeing, including extending formal taught time and extended services; and

• action beyond the school required to address children’s needs.

While there are important policy and contextual differences between each UK jurisdiction, this statement, while recognising these differences, sets out principles and suggestions that will be of value in all these jurisdictions.

It should also be noted that this statement will be of relevance to the education systems in the Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Jersey and Guernsey. While the paper refers to the ‘UK’ in places, its cross-jurisdictional relevance also includes these territories.

Background and context

The effects on society of the Covid-19 pandemic have been deep and wide-reaching, causing long-lasting issues that will undoubtedly be felt for many years.

It is undeniable that the impact of the global crisis in disrupting children’s education has been significant. Educational progress and achievements have been inhibited, alongside damage to the social and cultural development of children and young people,e as well as their emotional and mental wellbeing.

Teachers and school leaders have demonstrated their unwavering commitment, dedication and professionalism during this challenging time, continuing to deliver high-quality learning even in this unprecedented situation.

The NASUWT recognises the urgent need for a long-term, sustainable and properly funded education recovery strategy. A comprehensive strategy that brings together the work of schools and other bodies is now essential.

Towards an effective and sustainable recovery strategy

Although the educational implications of the pandemic have been significant, it is clear that other important dimensions of children’s lives have been affected.

For this reason, the NASUWT rejects recovery strategies premised on a narrow vision of ‘catch-up’, in which the aim of any strategy is little more than to fill in the gaps left by disrupted schooling.

The Union also rejects an approach that asserts that the innate resilience of children means that all and any adverse impacts can largely be addressed simply by returning them to full-time education with limited or no additional support.

Recovery should be understood as a long-term process given the pandemic’s far reaching impacts. It should also be viewed as an opportunity to tackle deep-rooted structural issues affecting children and young people in all aspects of their lives that have been exposed and further exacerbated by the pandemic. Other education systems, including those in the Netherlands and the United States, have developed bold and ambitious plans that reflect this reality.

To be sustainable, recovery will also need to be manageable for those in the workforce with day-to-day responsibilities for children and young people. It will need to take into account the pressures they faced before the pandemic, the increased pressures they encountered during it and the challenges they will need to take on as it recedes.

For these reasons, the NASUWT advocates a holistic view of recovery, based on supporting children in all aspects of their lives, including, but not limited to, those relating to formal schooling.

Schools will have a critical role in securing recovery, but they cannot be expected to contribute in isolation or without working in effective partnerships with other services for children and young people that are adequately resourced and appropriately supported.

It is also clear that the impact of the pandemic has not been experienced uniformly. While it is likely to be the case that every child has been adversely affected by the crisis, some will have been impacted more profoundly than others, particularly those who were more vulnerable or more disadvantaged before the pandemic.

There are huge disparities in educational outcomes that young people from particular backgrounds face and this is an increasing problem that has been exacerbated by the pandemic. Racism, racial injustice, economic disadvantage and other discriminatory factors impacted on the education outcomes and life chances of young people well before the pandemic as a result of systemic inequalities.

This situation has worsened for young Black pupils, including those from Gypsy, Roma Traveller (GRT) communities, and from poorer backgrounds, further compounding the socioeconomic disadvantages they face.

Any education recovery plan by governments/administrations for building back better and fairer must address these existing disparities and ensure that policies and practices going forward focus on demonstrable positive outcomes for all pupils and communities.

All aspects of recovery addressed in this statement must, therefore, recognise and address the demonstrable disparities in experience and outcomes that particular groups of pupils have faced during the pandemic, including those that relate to race, socioeconomic status and geographical location. They must give practical effect to provisions set out in equalities legislation, particularly the Public Sector Equalities Duty and the specific duties and responsibilities this establishes in respect of those with protected characteristics.

Recovery will also need to reflect the aims and objectives of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), including those set out in Article 12 of the Convention on ensuring that appropriate weight is given to their views in matters that affect them.

The NASUWT has set out clear principles on the ways in which these provisions should be interpreted, including how Article 12 provisions should be balanced against other Convention rights, particularly those relating to the duties on public bodies to act in the interests of the child (Article 3) and the right to education (Articles 28 and 29).

While the UNCRC guides public policy across the UK, these considerations are of particular relevance in Scotland in light of the introduction of the Convention into domestic law. 

Given the significant scale of the recovery challenge and the need for it to be impactful, it will be essential that it is subjected to ongoing system-level evaluation of the extent to which it is making a difference for children and supporting the workforce.

Schools will also require support in developing manageable and meaningful approaches to evaluating the impact of their strategies.

The NASUWT’s vision for recovery addresses children’s experiences both in and at school, as well as in their lives beyond school, while recognising the interconnections between both aspects.

The key features of such a strategy are set out below.

Recovery and children’s experiences in school

All children are entitled to a high-quality education that meets their needs and interests, promotes their wellbeing and enhances their future life chances. The pandemic’s legacy for children’s progress, achievement and wider wellbeing serves only to emphasise further the importance of this entitlement.

Therefore, schools and the staff who work in them will be at the heart of any effective recovery strategy. This strategy will require an effective focus on the workforce to ensure that it is as well placed as possible to support children’s learning and development. Such a strategy will need to encompass the following elements:

Action to tackle excessive and unnecessary workload

Going into the pandemic, survey evidence collected by the NASUWT and others, including the Government, confirmed that workload was the biggest concern that teachers and school leaders had about the quality of their working lives. During the pandemic, it has become clear that many of the well-established drivers of unnecessary workload remain in place in too many schools. These poor practices have exacerbated the additional pressures created by the pandemic, such as managing qualifications awarding arrangements and delivering remote learning.

As a minimum expectation, action will need to be taken to ensure that these causes of excessive workload, particularly those related to marking, planning and assessment, are tackled. The three reports of the Independent Teacher Workload Review Group in England, published in 2016, set out clear, simple and achievable steps that schools across the UK can take to reduce the burdens associated with these practices, as did the 2018 follow-up report (pdf) on managing data burdens. In Scotland, more effective action will need to be taken to implement the report of the Curriculum for Excellence Working Group on Tackling Bureaucracy (pdf).

Approaches across the UK that leave individual schools free to continue with workload-intensive practices have not worked as the fundamental causes of excessive workload remain unaddressed in too many cases. A meaningful recovery strategy will require concerted action by governments and administrations to intervene in schools where poor practice persists and ensure that the demands they make of schools do not result in excessive and unnecessary burdens for staff.

A key component of this element of the strategy will be to ensure that teachers’ and school leaders statutory and contractual entitlements are respected. Wherever they work in the UK, teachers’ and school leaders’ have a range of statutory and/or contractual entitlements that can support the achievement of manageable workloads and their right to a work/life balance which should not be encroached upon. While these entitlements vary across the UK, particularly important provisions in this respect, where in place, relate to:

• cover expectations;

• planning. preparation and assessment (PPA), planning, preparation and correction (PPC), and leadership and management time;

• limits on overall working time and/or class contact time;

• directed time; and

• requirements to undertake administrative and clerical tasks.

Education recovery cannot be advanced effectively if these rights are not respected and must not be used as a justification for undermining any of them.

Given the extraordinary pressures that the school workforce has encountered during the pandemic, recovery strategies will not be effective or sustainable if they create additional burdens for the workforce or negatively impact on their wellbeing. It should be noted that the joint OECD/Education International (EI) report on education recovery identifies supporting staff wellbeing and mental health as core components of any effective education recovery strategy.

Allow teachers and school leaders to concentrate on teaching and learning

Teachers and school leaders need working environments where they can concentrate on their core responsibilities for teaching and leading teaching and learning so that children can access the high-quality learning experiences to which they are entitled. Many activities that teachers and school leaders are often required to undertake, including many of those related to excessive workload demands, do not use their professional skills, talents and expertise as qualified teachers effectively. A fit-for-purpose recovery strategy would identify those barriers teachers and school leaders currently face to focusing on those tasks that make the most difference to children’s learning and take action to ensure that these barriers are removed.

Maintaining adequate teacher supply and employment

Addressing the education-related aspects of recovery requires an adequate supply of suitably qualified teachers. Before the pandemic, the education systems in some parts of the UK faced the most severe teacher recruitment and retention crisis since the Second World War. While there are indications that the impact of the pandemic on the broader graduate labour market has resulted in some improvements in key recruitment and retention indicators, it is recognised that any ‘Covid-bounce’ in teacher supply is likely to be extremely short-lived.

Other causes of the teacher supply crisis are well established. They include:

• the cumulative impacts of a decade of pay restraint and suppression;

• poor pupil behaviour;

• limitations on pay and career profession prospects;

• low regard for staff wellbeing;

• non-collegiate and unsupportive working environments that do not respect teachers’ professionalism; and

• limited access to professional development and training.

Without action at national and school levels in all these respects, there is a clear risk that recruitment and retention into the profession will continue to deteriorate and jeopardise the education system’s capacity to meet future challenges.

It is important to recognise that the position on teacher supply is not uniform across the UK and that there are circumstances where qualified teachers face significant difficulties in securing employment. Where this is case, governments and administrations must ensure that the skills, talents and expertise of these teachers are not lost to the education system.

Securing the right of every child to be taught by a qualified and professionally developed teacher

The workforce is fundamental to maintaining high-quality education provision. During the pandemic, teachers demonstrated their creativity and capacity to cope in a crisis. However, investment in teacher preparation and continuing professional development needs to be a renewed priority so that teachers are supported to meet the challenges of the recovery period.

Teachers will need to be given the time to engage in professional learning and forms of professional collaboration that the pandemic has disrupted. These forms of teacher development should focus on approaches with proven track records of success, including linking development and training to classroom practice and allowing teachers to experiment and test new ideas and share experiences and reflections with colleagues beyond their own workplaces.

The existing approach to professional training and development in much of the UK, in which teachers and school leaders have no reasonable expectation of accessing training and development that meets their needs and those of learners, can have no place in an education system that professes to take recovery seriously. As the OECD and EI have made clear, effective and equitable recovery strategies are those that incorporate systematic approaches to professional development and training, drawing on lessons learned during the pandemic. It is past time for a clear, unequivocal entitlement to development and training to be included in every teacher’s and school leader’s employment contract and investment in professional development and training capacity to be prioritised in public expenditure plans.

However, the positive impact of investing in the training and development of qualified teachers will be diluted if current permissions in parts of the UK to deploy unqualified staff in teaching roles are not addressed. Every child has a right to be taught by a qualified teacher and legislative measures must be in place across the UK to ensure that this right is secured in reality.

These considerations also highlight the need for continuity of educational provision, which is often undermined by the unjustified use of temporary or fixed-term contracts in circumstances where permanent contracts should be awarded.

Ending the relationship between pay progression and performance management

All teachers employed under the provisions of the School Teachers Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD) in England, and a significant number of teachers employed in other circumstances, including in academies and free schools in England and independent schools across the UK, continue to have their pay progression linked to the outcomes of performance management and appraisal processes. Where such practices persist, the imperatives of recovery require that they are discontinued. The NASUWT has set out Ten Good Reasons why the relationship between pay and performance management should be broken. In the particular context of education recovery, this relationship is especially likely to impede collaboration between teachers, undermine their morale, distort the ability of appraisal to support objective consideration of professional development needs, and stifle the innovation and creativity on which recovery-related practices in schools will depend.

Supporting leaders to support the workforce

The adaptations to existing practices in schools required to ensure children and young people’s recovery from the pandemic will make significant demands on those with leadership roles across the education system. Models of leadership and management focused on securing workforce compliance with rigid protocols and expectations can have no place in the agile, responsive school system required to develop and sustain impactful recovery. Leaders must be helped to establish and maintain collaborative working practices and approaches to managing the performance of teachers that respect their professionalism.

Deployment of supply and substitute teachers

Across the UK, the supply and substitute teacher workforce will have a critical role to play in supporting pupils’ progress and achievement in the recovery phase. As qualified professionals, supply and substitute teachers are able to enhance the quality and range of educational provision and create capacity in schools and colleges to design and offer the kinds of tailored and personalised learning experiences on which effective and sustainable recovery strategies will depend.

Supply and substitute teachers will only be able to be able to make the fullest possible contribution to recovery if they can benefit from equitable terms and conditions of employment, pay and professional development opportunities. The challenges and barriers that many supply teachers can face are well established (pdf) and have been the cause of long-standing concern. These critical members of the teaching workforce have experienced particular challenges and financial disadvantage during the pandemic and it is, therefore, essential that these issues, and the deeply-rooted problems they experienced before and going into the crisis, are addressed in recovery strategies in all parts of the UK.

Innovation and research

Throughout the pandemic, the NASUWT has remained clear that the best place for pupils is in school, taught by qualified teachers assigned to each class, working alongside a well-supported and effectively resourced wider school workforce. Technology must not be regarded as a means by which this model of provision can be undermined or be used to undermine the working conditions of teachers, school leaders and the wider workforce.

However, the crisis has highlighted the power of technology to support teaching and learning in complementing, not substituting, the work of teachers and school leaders. By equipping all pupils and teachers with the tools to learn and teach within virtual and online environments, not only will educational provision be more able to overcome temporary disruptions to provision but can also expand learning beyond the classroom, support and extend pedagogic practice, and give children and young people alternative avenues to extend and deepen their learning.

Its role is particularly evident in respect of those pupils who will continue to face barriers to attending school due to underlying health conditions. Governments and administrations across the UK should issue a national competition to invite leading technology companies and suppliers to invest in the future through a programme to deliver technology and support to assist children’s learning in schools and at home. This competition might be incentivised effectively through the tax system.

A great deal has also been learned throughout the pandemic about those approaches to remote and blended learning that are less effective educationally, place unacceptable demands on school staff, and undermine their professionalism. The NASUWT’s remote learning principles set out those positive practices that result in the best experiences for teachers, school staff and learners and should be reflected in future policy development.

The unprecedented nature of the Covid-19 outbreak has generated many novel challenges for the provision of education. Challenges of a comparable scale will be faced during the education system’s recovery phase. There is an urgent need for governments, administrations and others to support research into how educational progress and achievement can best be secured in the face of these challenges. Recent work undertaken by the OECD confirms that across the industrialised world, investment in health-related research is 17 times greater than that directed towards education. Such under-investment will undermine efforts to secure critical education-related aspects of recovery and must be addressed as a matter of urgency by governments and policymakers.

Assessment, qualifications and accountability

Lessons need to be learned from the process for examinations and national assessments in 2020 and 2021 or the future, recognising that the next academic year will be subject to ongoing disruption. National assessments and qualifications will still need to play a role in the system in the longer term, but the reliance on performance tables based on examination and test data to assess schools in some parts of the UK should be discontinued to enable teachers to focus on delivering a broad and balanced offer that is capable of recognising and meeting the needs of learners, whilst avoiding inappropriate teaching to the test.

What will be required is the development of an intelligent accountability system that is developmental, supportive, encourages collaboration rather than competition between schools and reflects more accurately the full scope of the contribution they make to children’s lives. Such a strategy will be central to ensuring that schools are incentivised to provide the broad and balanced curriculum that is not only central to the educational entitlements of children and young people, but that is also critical to recovery. An approach to recovery in schools that marginalises particular subjects, including artistic and creative subjects, from core curricular time cannot be regarded as acceptable.

Inspectorates should play a central role in supporting the development of effective national and school-level policy and practice, particularly regarding vulnerable pupils and those with protected characteristics.

Increasing formal taught time and amending term patterns

It has been suggested in some UK jurisdictions that the educational implications of the pandemic on children’s learning and development might most effectively be addressed by increasing the total amount of time spent engaged in formal education. Proposals in this respect often focus on extending the school day or year.

Without significant investment in additional staff and resources, such proposals would create significant workload and wellbeing risks. Moreover, it is by no means evident that increasing the quantity of formal taught time in this way would secure meaningful educational or other benefits for children and young people.

Evidence from the OECD is clear that relative to the nature and quality of provision in existing school time, the length of the school day or year is of limited importance. This point is further emphasised by evidence from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), which suggests that the potential positive impact of extending formal teaching time is low in comparison with other interventions. The clear majority of interventions included in the EEF’s Toolkit are rated more effective than extending taught time. The EEF encourages schools to consider ways that existing school time might be used more effectively before contemplating extending formal taught time.

International comparative evidence (pdf) confirms no clear correlation between longer school days and years and educational outcomes. Many countries identified as among the highest performing in international studies have comparatively less time in school than others not generally included in this group. It should be noted that the length of the school year in the UK’s education systems is at the higher end of the distribution of other European jurisdictions. The typical school day duration in UK jurisdictions is the same as, or longer than (pdf), other countries often identified as high performing, including those of New Zealand, Singapore, Finland and Japan.

Beyond the length of instructional time, attention has often been focused on the extent to which educational performance is correlated with the structure of school terms. In particular, interest has centred on whether children’s academic performance might be supported through shortening the length of the summer holiday. However, international evidence suggests no strong relationship between how the school year is organised and educational outcomes. For example, education systems in the UK have among the shortest summer holiday durations across Europe, where a seven-week summer vacation or longer is typical.

Therefore, it is unlikely that the substantial costs, disruption, and additional burdens associated with approaches to recovery based on increasing formal taught time or the reorganisation of term dates would be outweighed by their limited and unclear benefits.

For this reason, the NASUWT is clear that attention, effort and resources to support recovery should be focused on other strategies.

Educational interventions with greater potential to support recovery

The following interventions are supported by credible evidence and are, therefore, worthy of serious consideration in the development of recovery strategies.

Behaviour interventions

Behaviour interventions can focus on various issues, including low-level disruption, anti-social activities, aggression, violence, bullying and substance abuse.

Evidence confirms that specialist and targeted support for pupils with behaviour that challenges is associated with significant educational gains. This evidence indicates that programmes of between two and six months tend to have the most sustained results in terms of pupil progress and achievement.

While teachers can be asked to undertake these interventions as a way of undertaking their day-to-day responsibilities for managing behaviour, it is clear from the evidence that additional support to that provided routinely by teachers in classrooms is required to secure the most significant impacts.

Collaborative learning

Evidence suggests that structured approaches in the classroom that encourage pupils to work together can significantly impact pupils’ attainment and progress. Practices that promote talk and interaction between learners tend to result in the best learning gains.

Collaborative learning has also been found to increase the effectiveness of other approaches, including mastery learning or digital technology.

Peer tutoring

Approaches to peer learning involve pupils working in pairs or small groups to provide each other with explicit teaching support. These approaches can involve older pupils working with younger tutees or pupils swapping between the tutor and tutee roles.

Evidence indicates that peer tutoring systems are particularly effective at supporting pupil progress and achievement when pupils are provided with support for their interaction with peers and where tutoring takes place in intensive blocks. Tutoring is also regarded as most effective in consolidating pupils’ learning rather than as a replacement for direct teaching. 

Social and emotional aspects of learning

Activities focused on social and emotional learning seek to improve pupil achievement through strategies focused on:

• universal, classroom-based programmes;

• targeted, individual interventions for specific pupils; or

• school-level approaches based on producing an overall learning ethos or climate more conducive to raising levels of progress and attainment.

They also are central to the work that schools undertake in supporting the emotional, psychological and personal development of children and young people.

The EEF suggests that social and emotional learning has an ‘identifiable and significant’ impact on attainment. However, the Toolkit indicates that the most effective approaches are embedded into routine educational practices where staff have access to professional training and development on the social and emotional aspects of learning.

These dimensions of learning set in the context of a broad and balanced curriculum will have an important role to play in helping children in to develop a recovery mindset, through which they are helped to restore and sustain their physical, emotional and social wellness which may have been impacted adversely during the pandemic.

Meta-cognition and self-regulation

Meta-cognition and self-regulation approaches are intended to help learners to think more explicitly about their learning. These approaches typically involve pupils being helped to set goals and manage their academic development and motivation towards education.

Such approaches have been found to have a relatively high impact on pupil progress and achievement, particularly for low-achieving and older pupils and where activities take place in groups. These strategies are likely to be most effective when they are integrated into pupils’ normal classroom routines.

One-to-one and small group tuition

Evidence indicates that one-to-one and small group tuition can support children and young people who may be at particular risk of encountering barriers to their progress and achievement. A recent meta-analysis of over 90 tutor-based interventions found that the most effective tutoring programmes were characterised by the deployment of qualified teachers in tutoring roles, integration into the school day, and tutor groups of five pupils or fewer. They were also largely teacher-designed and led. This finding is supported by feedback from NASUWT members working in schools alongside tutors where it is reported that the most effective programmes involve tutors who are qualified teachers and who have access to high-quality training and professional support.

In England, significant emphasis has been placed on tutoring in supporting the education-related aspects of recovery through the National Tutoring Programme. While recognising the positive potential of this programme, emerging feedback on implementation to date has highlighted issues that will need to be addressed if the programme is to make the best possible contribution to education recovery. These issues include the terms and conditions of service of those engaged in tutoring, the poor track record of some contractors in respect of the pay and support offered to tutors, inconsistent efforts to involve teachers in the development of programmes, and insufficient capacity to ensure that children who might benefit from support can receive it.

Reducing class sizes

Studies indicate that limiting class size can have a powerful impact on pupils’ educational experiences. The Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) project in Tennessee and the Class Size and Pupil-Adult Ratio (CSPAR) study in the UK supported the view that class size had positive implications for pupils’ learning. This impact was particularly evident for younger pupils, those from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with relatively lower levels of prior attainment. Other studies have pointed to the benefits for the development of pupils’ non-cognitive skills (such as persistence and engagement) of smaller class sizes.

Evidence suggests that smaller class sizes can have not only positive benefits for all pupils, but have also been associated with particularly positive outcomes for Black pupils and those for whom English is an additional language.

Literature reviews of teachers’ reported experience confirm that reductions in class size can positively impact teacher workload and stress levels. Evidence from other jurisdictions further suggests that reductions in class size can also help address concerns relating to teacher recruitment and retention.

Accessing extended services in and through schools

Although the case for increasing formal taught time in schools is relatively weak, experience gained from previous programmes of delivering school-based extended services shows that they could have significant potential in supporting recovery.

Particularly relevant experience and evidence of the contribution that extended services can make was gained in England during the 2000s when a national strategy for delivering extended services on school sites was central to the then Government’s children and families policy. This strategy recognised that providing wider services for pupils and their families in and through schools, including some co-location of these services on school sites, could enhance all children’s development and address risks to the wellbeing and future life chances of the most vulnerable.

While models of extended service provision varied, ‘full service’ extended services included childcare, child and family physical and mental healthcare, learning support, parenting support, parent and baby units, children’s social care, and school attendance services.

Critically, these services were developed as part of a coherent local strategy in which needs were mapped carefully, with schools collaborating on and sharing provision. In this way, wasteful duplication and economies of scale were avoided. Such services were also adequately resourced and delivered by specialist staff. They did not involve teachers and school leaders working outside the provisions of their contracts, add to their workload, or distract them from their core responsibilities for teaching and leading teaching and learning.

The independent evaluation of the full service extended services pilot confirmed that these services had a significantly positive effect across the full range of child wellbeing indicators, including those related to educational progress and achievement. Ofsted confirmed these findings in its evaluation of the programme.

It is recognised that it would not be appropriate to simply transplant this model of extended services directly into today’s education system. However, in light of the diverse range of needs that will need to be addressed as the pandemic recedes, it is clear that the development of a comprehensive extended services offer could make a powerful contribution to the effectiveness of recovery strategies.

Investment in and collaboration between wider children’s services

The crisis has highlighted and deepened pre-pandemic concerns about the fragmented nature of children and young people’s services in some parts of the UK, particularly in the areas of special and additional needs.

Meaningful and holistic recovery will not be possible unless frameworks are re-established to support co-operation and partnership working between all these services, including schools.

Recovery strategies must enable local authorities to co-ordinate provision in every child’s interests and ensure that none are left behind. A statutory duty to co-operate with local education, health and care planning services for children and young people would ensure that children do not fall through the gap, schools can draw upon the resources and expertise they require, and that they and their families have access to the help and support they need.

Government and administrations must support action in this area through significant investment in these services, particularly in-school and out-school services focused on supporting the mental health and wellbeing of children and those who are most vulnerable and disadvantaged.

The real-terms cuts in spending in the children’s services sector experienced over the past decade must be reversed, with additional resources made available to meet recovery-related priorities.

Tackling child poverty

Before the pandemic, levels of child poverty in the UK had reached entirely unacceptable levels. Evidence confirms that in 2019/20 4.3 million children were living in poverty in the UK, with children of lone-parent or large families and Black children among those most at risk of living in the most economically disadvantaged households. Across this period, three quarters of children in poverty lived in homes where at least one adult was in employment.

Given that economic disadvantage is the characteristic that has the most significant impact on pupil’s learning, development, wellbeing and life chances, it is profoundly concerning that the pandemic has compounded the financial pressures on many households.

A study of families on low incomes undertaken by the Child Poverty Action Group in November 2020 found that nearly nine in ten families had experienced a significant deterioration in their living standards compared to before the pandemic. The same study found that almost six in ten families were experiencing difficulties covering the cost of three or more essentials, including food, utilities, rent, travel or child-related costs. These concerns are compounded by evidence that the economic prospects for many economically disadvantaged households are likely to deteriorate in the absence of meaningful action to address these risks.

An approach based on the continuation of previous policy in this area will serve only to hinder rather than support the development of a recovery programme that addresses the needs of the most vulnerable children in society.

In the short term, the Government must reverse its decision to reverse the £20 per week uplift to Universal Credit and tax credits, enhance other child-related benefits, and remove current arbitrary benefits caps. The ability of all children to access universal free school meals would also have a positive impact on addressing the food insecurity that many households with children continue to face.

Encouraging evidence has emerged (pdf) on the effectiveness of Children North East’s work on action to poverty proof the school day through interventions and strategies designed to remove barriers to learning that exist because of the impacts children experience as a result of living in poverty.

Government and administrations should work with schools to implement these strategies to support pupils from the most disadvantaged families.