Schools North East and the North East Child Poverty Commission held a virtual panel this week to discuss the disadvantage gap in our region and the impact that the Covid pandemic is having on this issue.
Amanda Bailey of the North East Child Poverty Commission chaired the event, outlining the existing challenges of disadvantage and the data behind the attainment gap. Prior to Covid-19 the North East had the second highest rate of child poverty of anywhere in the UK, experienced the steepest recent increase in child poverty rates, and continues to have the highest proportion of FSM pupils.
The coronavirus lockdown is hitting disadvantaged communities hardest, with a digital divide and differing levels of parental support threatening to widen the already existing disadvantage gap. Amanda Bailey asked whether or not the current support provided by the government, whether it be ‘catch-up’ funding or the national tutoring programme, would be enough, and if the North East had a set of ‘asks’ to best support schools working in the most challenging communities.
Lorna Nicoll from Children North East spoke first about their work in poverty proofing. She noted that the pandemic was helping to reveal the educational issues around disadvantage, and asked if poverty should now be considered as a protected characteristic. Growing numbers of families are now affected by poverty, with differing levels of access to remote education, but also, beyond learning, the experience of children during breaks and lunch.
Sean Harris from Ambition Institute discussed the small actionable steps that schools made to make lives easier for children, with teachers going above and beyond to make education accessible. He argued that there is now an opportunity to take stock and revisit how we support pupils, with ‘hidden poverty’ being highlighted by the pandemic.
The role of teachers was then discussed by Hanneke Jones from Newcastle University. Teachers want to be agents of change, adapting practice to respond to the strengths and needs of all students. However, she noted that too often guidance failed to specify the challenges of disadvantage, despite this being the highest predictor of pupil outcomes. Hanneke said that it is important for teachers not to think in terms of a ‘deficit’ in learning, emphasising high expectations for all students and avoiding unconscious bias. She also noted that as much as schools could do, reducing educational inequalities depended on reducing social and economic inequalities outside of the classroom.
Director of Schools North East Chris Zarraga concluded the individual presentations, saying that the full extent of the impact of Covid-19 is not yet known, but it is clear that it is widening and evolving to include a wider range of issues, including around mental health, the experience of the pandemic itself during lockdown, and novel gaps caused by time out of school, not only during lockdown but ongoing extensive time out of schools this term. We now need to get ahead of the game, avoiding the all too often reactive policy making during the pandemic; ‘the things that need to change are higher level and strategic, primarily relating to how policy is made. Certain underlying principles need to be in place otherwise we risk embedding a range of serious problems into the school careers and lives of those children currently in school.’
Following on from this a panel session was held, with comments and questions from attendees. Questions were asked about what effective approaches could be taken and how to address the relentless nature of work that school staff currently undertake.
The panellists emphasised the importance of sharing practice across the sector. This would prevent teachers ‘firefighting’ and feeling isolated. The answers are out there in the hard work that schools across the North East and the rest of the country are doing, but schools and school staff need to be connected. There is unlikely to be a one size fits all approach, and long term thinking is crucial to understanding the contextual challenges each school faces. This work would need leadership, a cooperation across different sectors, with it not just being the responsibility of schools.
These issues are crucially important both now and in the longer term, and Schools North East is proud to continue working closely with the NECPC on these key challenges. Many of the concerns raised in the presentations and panel discussion informed the recommendations contained in our Manifesto for North East Education published in December 2019. It is clear that the pandemic is not simply creating new challenges, but exacerbating pre-existing ones, and our recommendations remain as relevant as ever. We are now holding a series of virtual roundtable events with MPs, to ensure that the voice of North East schools is heard and the issues they are facing are properly understood in Westminster.
