Children from Low-Income Families: Education Support

Debate between Rachel Hopkins and Philip Hollobone

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) on securing today’s important debate.

Over the past decade, the Conservative Government have inflicted the largest cut to school funding in 40 years. As a result, they are failing to tackle poverty and ensure that a quality education is accessible to all. According to End Child Poverty, 37% of children in my constituency are living in poverty—the Government should be ashamed that that figure has increased by 3% since 2014—and this is having a real impact on their learning. In 2019, a National Education Union survey found that more than three quarters of respondents stated that their students had demonstrated fatigue or poor concentration. That is because of poverty.

The fact is that the Government are failing children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Children eligible for free school meals are 28% less likely to leave school with five A* to C GCSE grades than their wealthier peers. Before the pandemic, the estimated learning gap in Luton between disadvantaged students and their peers in early years was three months; in primary school, it was seven months, and in secondary school it was 17 months. The pandemic has exacerbated inequality and the attainment gap.

By the end of the pandemic, and as a result of the lockdowns, most children across the UK will have missed more than half a year of in-person schooling. We know that lost learning disproportionately impacted children from disadvantaged backgrounds who did not have the necessary digital equipment or study space for remote learning. It was the Government’s responsibility to prevent disadvantaged young people from suffering digital exclusion due to the restrictions. Instead, excellent charities such as Luton Learning Link had to step in to make up for their failure to distribute enough digital devices.

Learning from home has also increased the economic burden on low-income families. Additional outgoings, such as high bills for electricity or mobile data, have hit families at the same time as economic insecurity in the labour market has increased. In Luton, as a consequence of the pandemic and the particular impact on the aviation and hospitality industries, the claimant count has increased from about the national average to the fifth-highest in the country, and the proportion of children receiving free school meals has increased from 21% to 27%. Those children deserve to have the same education as those in wealthy families.

Tackling the educational attainment gap as part of our recovery must be the Government’s top priority. No child should be left behind, but the Government’s current measly offer will not provide the ambitious recovery that is needed. Although others have spoken about the level of funding required, I will focus my remarks on where the funding should be allocated.

Children’s ability and confidence in spoken language is the bedrock of their learning and social and emotional wellbeing. The pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on oracy—speaking well. A report by the all-party parliamentary group on oracy found that two thirds of primary teachers and nearly half of secondary teachers say that school closures have undermined the spoken language development of their most disadvantaged students, compared with one in five teachers saying that it impacted their most advanced pupils.

An increased focus on oracy is an opportunity to accelerate the academic progress of children from disadvantaged backgrounds. The Education Endowment Foundation states that

“pupils who participate in oral language interventions make approximately five months’ additional progress over the course of a year”,

rising to six months for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. I have seen examples of this, such as the impact of the Level Trust’s SMASH summer scheme on building the confidence and creativity of children in Luton, and I was lucky enough to give out those awards last summer. Alongside a comprehensive strategy to fund schools properly and expand support services, Labour’s education recovery plan would contribute to developing children’s oracy by expanding school facilities to deliver breakfast clubs and after-school activities, from arts and sports to book clubs, board games, learning through play and communicating.

Expanding access to creative education for children from low-income backgrounds would also help to reduce the attainment gap. Creative subjects can improve a young person’s cognitive abilities by up to 17%, supporting their development in other subjects, such as English and maths. Young people who do not have access to arts and culture are disadvantaged both economically and educationally. The arts should not only be for privileged young people from wealthy families, so will the Minister explain in her closing remarks how the Government intend to fully integrate oracy into all stages and phases of education to help close the educational attainment gap, and whether she agrees that the Government should urgently invest in improving access to creative education, in order to contribute to reducing that gap?

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

It would not be a Westminster Hall debate without Strangford’s finest, Jim Shannon.

Nurseries and Early Years Settings

Debate between Rachel Hopkins and Philip Hollobone

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Hollobone. I start by thanking the hard-working early years staff in Luton and across the country for the dedicated support that they have provided to children and their families throughout the pandemic.

In Luton, across my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), there are six maintained nursery schools, which work together to provide comprehensive nursery education and care to our local community. Gill Blowers Nursery School, Grasmere Nursery School and Pastures Way Nursery in Luton North, as well as Chapel Street Nursery School, Rothesay Nursery School and Hart Hill Nursery School in Luton South, have stepped up to the challenges posed over the last year, despite the overarching financial uncertainty in the early years sector.

When I visited Hart Hill maintained nursery school and met the fantastic headteacher, Mrs Thompson, and her staff team, I saw at first hand the brilliant work that they do, and heard about how they have remained open throughout the pandemic to continue providing education and care to children from some of the most deprived areas of Luton. They have also supplied key resources and food to families.

Maintained nursery schools offer a bespoke package of education and care by using skilled staff and research-focused routines, environments and ethos, and by working in conjunction with external health and SEND professionals. A bespoke approach enables them to focus on children’s needs and wellbeing by understanding their responses and behaviour and then adapting provision to provide a safe, responsive space. The maintained nurseries in Luton have resourced provision for children who have significant special educational needs and severe medical or health needs. Last year, they successfully completed 53 education, health and care plans for children who have gone on to transition into specialised primary schools. The maintained nursery schools have ensured that between them they have resources to support 96 children with severe or complex needs, many of whom have been transferred from private early years settings. Their dedication and commitment to Luton ensures that our most vulnerable children have the care that they need and deserve.

Despite all the essential support that maintained nurseries provide our communities, the Government chose not to introduce a long-term funding plan in the recent spending review, about which we have already heard a lot. I am aware that there was the one-year settlement in the summer, but short-term funding plugs will not safeguard the future of maintained nurseries. Yearly funding does not provide sufficient certainty for maintained nurseries to plan ahead by employing staff and allocating resources, or for parents, who worry that the services on which they rely may not exist in a year’s time.

The Department for Education’s own statistics show that the percentage of maintained nursery schools in deficit has risen from 3.5% in 2009-10 to 17.7% in 2018-19. Unlike schools, many maintained nurseries have not received funding to cover additional covid costs, and are ineligible for the covid catch-up fund. Luton Borough Council consulted with DFE representatives on whether increased costs would be reimbursed, and the DFE indicated that they would be. However, all applications for costs reimbursement by maintained nurseries in Luton have been rejected, as they have been deemed ineligible. Will the Minister meet me and my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North to further discuss how Luton’s maintained nurseries can get crucial additional funding to cover those costs?

If maintained nurseries close, the cost of looking after vulnerable children will fall on other services, which have suffered the economic impact of austerity and the pandemic. I urge the Government to introduce a long-term funding settlement as soon as possible.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

No Westminster Hall debate would be complete without Jim Shannon.