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Information poverty is widely recognised as having a negative impact upon peoples' health and wellbeing, and socioeconomic prosperity; however, whilst an issue of significant societal concern evidenced across a wide variety of adult groups and socioeconomic contexts, no studies have been previously undertaken with children. This appears a significant oversight given that many children across the globe are considered multi-dimensionally poor. This study thus sought to explore the possibility of information poverty amongst children. One hundred fifty-six children (aged 6–8) from five UK primary schools participated in a series of practical exercises exploring their information behaviours, and 34 parents and teachers were interviewed to provide further insights. Finding's evidence self-protective information behaviours and unmet information needs amongst children aged 6–8; both characteristics of an impoverished information state. Whilst much can be explained in developmental terms (i.e. in relation to child age and emergent literacies), much can also be explained in information poverty terms encompassing issues of both information access and use. Notably, approximately half of our child participants considered themselves to be, in general, unsuccessful information seekers; and contrasts with the views of our adult participants who majority believed that children are, in general, successful information seekers. This paper provides the first evidence of information poverty in young children, and provides further insights into the role of parents in supporting their children's information needs and shaping their developing information behaviours, with parental mediation of child media use appearing particularly problematic. Enduring inequalities in information access are also highlighted. Beyond call for further global research, a public communication campaign to increase awareness of child information poverty and contributory factors is recommended as an immediate priority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are calls for researchers to study existing community assets and activities that appear to improve health and have achieved longevity. The TR14ers Community Dance Charity Limited is a community youth dance group that has been running since 2005 providing free weekly sessions for children and adolescents in an economically disadvantaged town in the UK. An in-depth case study employing qualitative, quantitative and participatory methods was undertaken with the TR14ers (current participants and those who have left, co-ordinators and families) over 6 months with the aim of understanding the sustainable processes and impact of the Group. The 12 complex systems' leverage points described by Meadows and the five domains of adolescent wellbeing developed by the United Nations H6+ Technical Working Group on Adolescent Health and Well-Being were used as frameworks to recognise the complexity of community assets like the TR14ers. The quantitative and qualitative data indicated that being part of the TR14ers contributed to multiple health and wellbeing outcomes. The positive experiences of being a TR14er led members to actively recruit others through word of mouth and public performances. Central to the TR14ers is a commitment to children's rights, which is communicated formally and informally throughout the membership informing how and what the Group does, leading to the structure and delivery of the Group evolving over time. Members sought to ensure the sustainability of the Group after they had left and were keen to mentor younger members to develop and become the leaders. Based on the insights from this case study we suggest that efforts to develop cultures of health, like the TR14ers, should focus on the core values of the activity or intervention that underpin what it does and how within the local context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the factors central to the practices and realities of historical educational support for destitute and neglected children in the Manchester Certified Industrial Schools (MCIS) to determine how the schools acted to support the lives of children who were removed from parental guardianship. In nineteenth-century England, the most vulnerable children, destitute and often neglected (specifically, those considered to have improper guardianship), posed a serious challenge to public order in urban society. This study employs primary records to trace the experiences of four children during and after MCIS enrolment. Prior to the current study, none of these records had been used in research. The analysis of records demonstrates that MCIS officers supported and followed up students even after they were discharged to help them survive without their parents and become conventional members of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Victorian Britain rags were not only associated with the inadequate clothing of the poor, they were also viewed as a valuable commodity, widely collected for recycling into paper. This essay examines rags as simultaneously despised and precious objects, tracing the connections between Victorian accounts of poverty, the industrial recycling of rags into paper, and the redemption narratives created by Charles Dickens about rescued children. A supporter of Ragged Schools and champion of rags recycling, Dickens drew on the idea of the transformation of dirty rags into clean paper in his representations of ragged children. To him, the recycling of rags indicated the civilizing forces of modernity, and reading Dickens's representations of ragged children in this context reveals how cloth recycling became a paradigm for society's duties towards destitute children. This essay explains Dickens's juxtaposition of ragged children with references to rag-dealing in his novels; by this means he suggested that street children, like their ragged clothing, were capable of being purified and transformed into social usefulness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This involves schools stating their commitment to a healthy school environment online and a consultation with Ofsted, the school reviewing body, on monitoring school food quality. A report by the Food Foundation highlights that only 25 % of schools in England were estimated to be committed to meeting the School Food Standards([32]), data on the remaining 75 % of schools is lacking. Recent research paints an alarming picture of the school food system in the UK. For this reason, the National Food Strategy recommended extending the means-tested free school meal eligibility to all children with an income of £20 000/year or less to ensure more children who experience poverty and severe food insecurity have access to a free school meal([30]). [Extracted from the article]

In 2016 the UK's Conservative Government radically changed the official approach to child poverty measurement, scrapping targets for income poverty and material deprivation and introducing instead indicators of household 'worklessness' and children's educational attainment at age 16. This paper seeks to assess the extent of support for this move among a range of national experts. The paper briefly reviews the way that poverty has been conceptualized by researchers going back to Booth and Rowntree, before going on to examine 251 responses to a 2012–2013 UK government consultation on child poverty measurement. By drawing on the consultation, the paper is able to consider the views of those working in local authorities, children's charities and frontline services as well as academic researchers. In doing so, it seeks to contribute to the literature on poverty measurement by considering a wider set of voices than are often heard. The paper identifies very clear and broad-based support for an approach to poverty measurement that has income and material deprivation at its heart. Out of 251 responses, just two advocate removing income from poverty measurement. Responses also overwhelmingly reflect a relative understanding of poverty. There is fairly limited support for a multidimensional approach, and the paper reflects on why this might be, given a shift to more multidimensional thinking about poverty globally. It concludes that poverty measurement is highly political: what is measured drives policy, and preferences for indicators therefore reflect, at least in part, current political concerns about how best to hold government to account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2010, UK social policy has been dominated by austerity and welfare reform. These policy platforms sit on a wider set of shifts in policy framings, in terms of both understanding the issue of poverty and the most effective solutions to it. The resulting strategies employed have had significant impacts on children and their household incomes. Within the context of the changing nature of state welfare and the drive for more privatised (non-state) provision, this paper focuses on the effects of this on assistance to children in particular, employing charitable food banks as a case study. Empirical data from the UK's largest food bank organisation (the Trussell Trust Foodbank Network) are explored to chart the rise of this provision as an example of the increasingly important role charitable organisations are playing in caring for children in the face of a reduced welfare state. The results show that both in mean and absolute terms, provision of food parcels to children by charitable foodbanks has grown considerably since the impacts of austerity, welfare reform and rising costs of living kicked in (2012/13). The results indicate that foodbanks are playing a bigger role in the provision of care to children generally in this context, but particularly where childhood deprivation is high. This paper furthers geographical discussions about the changing nature of care for those in or at risk of poverty, focusing on the increased vulnerability of children that has resulted from recent social policy shifts. Food banks form a particularly high-profile example of the rising prominence of charitable care in the context of an increasingly reduced welfare state. By discussing some of the key challenges of this provision, the paper also facilitates critical thinking about the issues that the contemporary shift away from universal social security and public care services might raise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper, we use a multidimensional framework to characterise child poverty in the UK. We examine the interdependencies amongst the different dimensions of multidimensional poverty and the relationship between multidimensional poverty and income poverty. We also explore the links between multidimensional poverty, income poverty and children's cognitive and non‐cognitive development. Our findings suggest that multidimensional poverty identifies many but not all of the same children classified using standard income poverty measures. Approximately 20 per cent of children are classified as poor on one measure but not the other. Children in workless households and ethnic minority children face the highest odds of growing up in both multidimensional poverty and income poverty. We find similar levels of persistence in multidimensional poverty and income poverty, with 17 per cent (18 per cent) of children experiencing persistent multidimensional (income) poverty and 10 per cent of children experiencing both persistent multidimensional poverty and persistent income poverty. Multidimensional poverty (both episodic and persistent) also has a detrimental impact on children's development over and above the negative impact of income poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a review of the family services that were offered by a sample of 121 English Sure Start Children’s Centres in 2011 and 2012. Children’s Centres are community based facilities that aim to improve outcomes for at-risk families and children through the delivery of a range of services largely aimed at families with young children. Services commonly offered include: health advice, childcare and early education, employment advice, informal drop-in facilities, and specialist support on parenting. This paper provides a snapshot of Children’s Centre service provision in 2011 and 2012 and documents the extent of change. A picture of broad stability was observed in the numbers of services that centres reported offering (from a list of 47 services grouped into 11 categories). However, some Children’s Centres also appeared to be changing the focus of the services that they provided. Some centres seemed to be shifting towards providing greater outreach (rather than parent-support) and services which were targeted (rather than universal). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This research examines parental involvement and academic achievement of children in the Sri Lankan Muslims ethnic minority living in the UK compared with the Sri Lankan Muslims living in Sri Lanka. Academic achievement of children was measured by selecting children who completed two-year end examination in 2020. Data were collected from 20 parents of children in each population and analysed with SPSS software. The perception of the community in the UK that the "academic achievement of their children is poor" has been proved wrong with a statistically highly significant performance record. The local Sri Lankans in Sri Lanka have been addressed, and there are no significant differences in the academic achievement between both populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a systematic review of qualitative studies of children living in material disadvantage, which compares and confirms experiences across a pool of studies that meet predetermined quality criteria. The review found that, according to children's narratives, the costs of poverty are not only material but also profoundly social. The evidence suggests that, despite their efforts to maximize their resources, many poor children experience a gradual narrowing of their horizons, both socially and economically. In conclusion the paper suggests the need for further research from children's viewpoints, given the UK government's commitment to reducing child poverty and associated problems of social exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the quality of early childhood education and care accessed by 3- and 4-year-olds in England varies by children's background. Focusing on the free entitlement to early education, the analysis combines information from three administrative datasets for 2010-2011, the Early Years Census, the Schools Census and the Ofsted inspections dataset, to obtain two main indicators of quality: staff qualification levels and Ofsted ratings. These data are combined with child-level indicators of area deprivation ( IDACI scores) as a proxy measure of children's background.The paper finds that children from more disadvantaged areas have access to better qualified staff, largely because they are more likely than children from richer areas to attend maintained nursery classes staffed by teachers, and less likely to attend services in the private, voluntary and independent ( PVI) sectors. However, within both maintained and PVI sectors, services catering for more disadvantaged children receive poorer quality ratings from Ofsted, with a higher concentration of children from disadvantaged areas itself appearing to reduce the likelihood of top Ofsted grades. This may be in part because Ofsted ratings reflect levels of child development, and therefore reward settings where children enter at a more advanced starting point, but it may also be that it is genuinely harder to deliver an outstanding service to a more disadvantaged intake. The results point to the need for funding to support better qualified staff in PVI settings in disadvantaged areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the policy consensus that exists amongst political parties in the UK in their shared ambition to eradicate child poverty by 2020. Three major pillars of policy – work intensification, re-distribution and skill upgrading – are challenged in terms of their likely success in reducing child poverty. In particular, the assumption that upgrading skills will raise earnings is challenged by examining the changing patterns of work in a selection of developed economies since the 1970s. This paper argues that addressing relative poverty requires an alternative theoretical approach to the neoclassical economics that currently underpins policy. Different national levels of earnings dispersion suggest that the role of institutions and culture in determining market outcomes deserves at least as much attention as the supply of skills. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper discusses the regressive nature of tax exemptions for children compared to child allowances and estimates the decline in child poverty in several developed countries due to child allowances. The paper then estimates the decline in child poverty in the United States due to tax exemptions for children and simulates the impact of various possible child allowance programs on child poverty in the United States. It finds that a $3000 to $4000 child allowance would reduce child poverty in the United States to the level of other developed nations and, due to the costs associated with child poverty, be a cost effective policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the introduction of the highly publicized Sure Start Local Programme (SSLP) initiative in 1998, the UK government introduced a community-based set of provisions targeted at families with children under 4 years who were living in some of the 20% most deprived and disadvantaged geographical areas in England. These programmes were designed to combat the adverse effects of poverty and disadvantage on the long-term outcomes for children and families. One challenging dimension for programme development has been the facilitation of access to the services on offer in these programmes. Drawing on findings from the implementation module within the government-commissioned National Evaluation of Sure Start, this paper examines the way in which SSLPs have sought to facilitate access to services for their local communities and to encourage community members to take up and continue using those services. This paper presents a detailed overview of programme activity in respect of access. It identifies a continuum of access and a model of three styles of parental service use. The paper highlights the implications of the SSLP implementation process for the development of subsequent related initiatives such as children’s centres and extended schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to examine current and evolving supply side transition policy initiatives in the light of (a) particular demand side needs of urban young people classified as those most disadvantaged and potentially marginalized; and (b) the emerging realities of accessing and operating within particular examples of high value-added knowledge work arenas of the new urban economies in the UK. The paper is a synthesis of qualitative research undertaken by the author over the last five years that has examined notions of transition, development and learning for both young people and adults as they attempt to navigate their pathways in, and through, the new economies of the post-industrial urban context. The paper communicates the importance of a number of sociocultural theoretical concepts as a way of illuminating transition choices, actions and opportunities for disadvantaged young people. These concepts also enable a broader set of critical questions to be asked about current 14–19 transition policy and practice, particularly with regards to Connexions and the Careers Education and Guidance in England 11–19 National Framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alan Milburn, the Chair of the Government's Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission recently highlighted the role of education in progressing social mobility in Scotland; 'In my view it's a grave social injustice that only one in forty pupils from Scotland's most deprived households...got three As in their Highers in 2011, compared to one in ten across all income levels'. An analysis of the data on school leavers in Scotland also points towards a considerable inequality in access to higher education in particular. This paper reports on a research and development project that progressed the provision of intergenerational mentoring for young people from communities experiencing social and economic disadvantage. The findings affirm the role of research in such innovation and indicate that intergenerational mentoring offers a process, long awaited, through which young people can gain access to the different forms of social and cultural capital that are implicitly essential for progression into higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines variations in the extent of special education needs (SEN) in different socio-economic contexts, drawing on data from 46 English primary schools. It examines the implications of variations in SEN for individual pupils and for school organisation and processes. It reviews funding allocations for SEN and what they mean for the provision of support in different settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last two decades, private renting has undergone a major revival in the UK, more than doubling its share within the housing system. Young adults increasingly remain in the sector into their 30s, giving rise to the term 'Generation Rent'. Using data from the UK's Family Resources Survey, this article shows how reliance on the sector varies by poverty status, particularly for young adults and children. In 2017/18, 42 per cent of adults under 40 in low-income poverty lived in private renting, compared with just 26 per cent of non-poor. This is almost double the proportion of 20 years earlier. Private renting is now home to more poor adults under 40 than owner occupation and social renting combined. In addition, one in three children in poverty (36 per cent) now lives in private renting, three times the level of 20 years ago. For both adults and children, rates are even higher in London and the South. Although rates of increase have slowed in recent years, this dramatic shift in the housing circumstances of those in poverty has a number of implications for housing and social policy which have not yet been sufficiently recognised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local authorities in Britain have been purchasing foster placements and related services from independent fostering agencies or providers (IFPs) for many years, These are often made on an unplanned or 'spot purchased' basis and many local authorities have incurred significant budgetary overspends or been criticized for poor child-care practice. In parts of the USA and Australia, governments have required public authorities to 'outsource' all or most of their foster-care responsibilities to private or voluntary agencies. Where these have been independently evaluated, a number of deficits have been identified. A middle position of local authorities and IFPs entering into service level or contractual agreements has emerged in Britain where each sector attempts to plan and match its respective needs and services and to predict and control costs. This paper explores how some local authority and IFP managers have developed working arrangements with one another in order to achieve this position. At a time when the British government is providing a strong policy steer towards inter-sector commissioning in foster-care, this paper suggests a framework for collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore changes over time in higher education (HE) participation and attainment between people from richer and poorer family backgrounds during a time period when the UK higher education system expanded at a rapid rate. We use longitudinal data from three time periods to study temporal shifts in HE participation and attainment across parental income groups for children going to university in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The key finding is a highly policy relevant one, namely that HE expansion has not been equally distributed across people from richer and poorer backgrounds. Rather, it has disproportionately benefited children from relatively rich families. Despite the fact that many more children from higher income backgrounds participated in HE before the recent expansion of the system, the expansion acted to widen participation gaps between rich and poor children. This finding is robust to different measures of education participation and inequality. It also emerges from non-parametric estimations and from a more detailed econometric model allowing for the sequential nature of education choices with potentially different income associations at different stages of the education sequence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the told story of a white working-class woman still teaching in an innercity primary school in the UK. Issues of her continuing exclusion despite early career success demonstrate how social class bias can operate within the UK education system in a variety of ways. Her story is set in the context of new EAZ, the appointment of 'superheads' to failing schools and other government initiatives aimed at improving the education of children from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Jenny is from this background herself and finds the cost of trying to maintain and celebrate her class identity very high-she describes it as a 'constant battle'. Her voice responds to Maguire's exploration of how Teacher Education in the UK reaffirms the middle-class 'promise' of becoming a teacher by both denying and disowning working-class cultures. This paper calls for more extensive research into the lived reality of difference when students from non-traditional backgrounds attempt to enter the profession and teach within it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Children living in disadvantaged socio-economic circumstances (SEC) are more commonly victims of bullying, but pathways leading to social inequalities in being bullied are unclear. We assess how early life risk factors might mediate the increased risk of being bullied at age seven for children living in disadvantaged circumstances. Material and methods: Using data from 5,857 children in the UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) we calculate risk ratios (RR) for being bullied at age seven (child-reported), by household income quintile. Socially patterned risk factors for being bullied relating to social networks, family relationships and child characteristics from birth to age five were adjusted for to assess if they mediated any association between SEC and being bullied. Results: 48.6% of children reported having been bullied. Children living in the lowest income households were at 20% greater risk of being bullied compared to those from the highest (RR1.20, 95%CI 1.06,1.36). Controlling for social networks, family relationships and child characteristics attenuated the increased risk for children in low income households to aRR 1.19 (95%CI 1.05, 1.35), aRR 1.16 (95%CI 1.02,1.32) and aRR 1.13 (95%CI 1.00,1.28) respectively. Our final model adjusted for risk factors across all domains attenuated the RR by 45% (aRR 1.11,95%CI 0.97,1.26). Conclusions: About half of children reported being bullied by age seven with a clear social gradient. The excess risk in children growing up in disadvantaged circumstances was partially explained by differences in their early years relating to their social network, family relationships and the child’s own abilities and behaviours. Policies to reduce inequalities in these risk factors may also reduce inequalities in the risk of being bullied in childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on an evaluation of the Poverty proofing the school day initiative. It outlines an argument arrived at through abductive reasoning to explain the generic and widespread instances of the stigmatisation of disadvantaged pupils that have been uncovered. The process of abductive reasoning necessitated broadening the conceptual framework through which we usually understand poverty and its impacts on education, and in so doing we take account of the affective or psychosocial dimensions and the attendant coping strategies that result. Listening to children's descriptions of poverty and its impacts on schooling is an essential aspect of better understanding these non‐material aspects of poverty and their ramifications for all involved. There is, however, a lack of time and appropriate structures in schools to attend to this wider conceptualisation of poverty, yet the outcomes of Poverty proofing the school day demonstrate that schools do have a significant role to play in reducing the barriers to learning that result. We make the case that the specific conditions of high‐stakes performativity in which schools operate, and the dominance of instrumental and metrics‐based responses to issues around poverty and learning, reduce the visibility of the affective dimension and in so doing enable unwitting stigmatisation to result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Raising the proportion of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds progressing to higher education has been a key policy objective for successive governments in the UK since the late 1990s. Often this has been conceptualised as a problem with their ‘aspirations’, with the solution being seen as the provision of ‘aspiration‐raising’ activities to promote higher education to those thought to have the potential to progress. Recent large‐scale studies cast strong doubt on this hypothesis by demonstrating that aspirations are not generally low, that different social groups have similar levels of aspiration and that school attainment accounts for nearly all the differences in participation rates between social groups. This article draws on data from a national project exploring efforts to widen participation across two generations of practitioner‐managers in England, focusing on their conceptualisations of the field and their constructions of ‘successful’ activities. It uses the lens of ‘possible selves’ (Markus & Nurius, ) to argue that too much policy emphasis has been placed on the aspirations of young people, rather than either their academic attainment or their expectations, which are shaped by the normative expectations of the adults surrounding them. In addition, the more expansive concepts of widening participation that were present a decade ago have become less common, with a shift towards activities with a clear role in institutional recruitment rather than social transformation. The article concludes with alternative suggestions for policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is little information about, and understanding of, how children from families living in poverty experience school, as opposed to children from better-off families. This paper is based on the views of children aged 5-11 in schools across Northern Ireland, UK. It argues that family poverty impacts on every aspect of a child's experience of school from the earliest years of primary school and, therefore, that policy interventions to improve educational outcomes are unlikely to be effective unless they are accompanied by far broader social policy initiatives to reduce poverty and inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite strenuous attempts made by the New Labour government in the UK to progress towards its goal of eradicating child poverty by 2020, educational outcomes for disadvantaged children remain depressed compared to those of more advantaged children. The fact that children from poorer socio-economic backgrounds are at much greater risk of language delay, which is a key predictor of poorer educational outcomes, indicates that there is a fundamental need to enhance the language abilities of these children in their early years in order to improve educational progress. This paper discusses the extent to which two new major UK policy initiatives may impact on this situation, namely the introduction of the Early Years Foundation Stage, a new curricular framework for children aged from birth to five, and the development of the Early Years Professional role, seen as key to the implementation of this framework. The discussion concludes that due to insufficiently rigorous conceptual underpinnings, especially in the area of language and communication, these innovations seem unlikely to deliver the type of language-enriched preschool environments necessary to enhance the linguistic capabilities of the poorest children in UK society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In October 1999, the British government enacted the Working Families' Tax Credit, which aimed at encouraging work among low-income families with children. This paper uses panel data collected between 1991 and 2001 to evaluate the effect of this reform on single mothers. We find that the reform led to a substantial increase in their employment rate of about five percentage points, which was driven by both a higher rate at which lone mothers remained in the labor force and a higher rate at which they entered it. Women's responses were highly heterogeneous, with effects double this size for mothers with one preschool-aged child, and virtually no effect for mothers with multiple older children. The employment increase was accompanied by significant increases in paid childcare utilization and our analysis in fact suggests that the generous childcare credit component of the reform played a key role in explaining the estimated employment and childcare usage responses. We also find that the increase in labor market participation was accompanied by reductions in single mothers' subsequent fertility and in the rate at which they married, behavioral responses, which in turn are likely to influence the reform's overall impact on child poverty and welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community programmes designed to improve the functioning of disadvantaged neighbourhoods and the families living there, as well as to reduce specific problems such as child abuse and youth offending, are currently very popular with the UK government. However, whilst there is considerable knowledge about the structural causes of individual and neighbourhood disadvantage in UK society, evidence about the role that community programmes can play in addressing these inequalities is much more limited. The evidence that does exist tends either to have been imported from other parts of the world (notably the USA), or to be in the early stages of evaluation in the UK, with the initial findings sometimes proving rather unconvincing. In particular, the limitations of targeted funding, and the difficulties of establishing and maintaining the effective partnerships upon which successful programmes rely, are emerging as significant issues. In this paper the implications of these findings for the future of children's services is considered, in the context of ever-widening inequalities in UK society and the government's plans for children's trusts, integrated children's centres, and extended schools, involving multi-agency working between health, education and social services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over a decade, all three‐year‐olds in England have been entitled to a free part‐time early education place. One aim of this policy is to close developmental gaps between higher‐income and low‐income children. However, the success of the initiative depends on children accessing the places. Using the National Pupil Database, we examine all autumn‐born four‐year‐olds attending in January 2011, and ask whether they started attending when first eligible, in January 2010. One in five children did not access their free place from the beginning, and the proportion is much higher among children from families with persistently low incomes. We also find differences by ethnicity and home language, but these factors explain only a small share of the income gradient. We go on to explore associations between non‐take‐up and local area factors. In areas with higher child poverty rates, take‐up is lower overall, but the gap between low‐income and other families is smaller. There are also various associations between take‐up and local proportions of different provider types (maintained, private, voluntary, Sure Start). In particular, the voluntary sector seems to have more flexibility than maintained provision to offer places in January, and more success than private providers in reaching children from lower‐income backgrounds. The analysis also highlights how take‐up overall is relatively high and the gap by income level is smaller in areas with more Sure Start provision. This suggests that aspects of Sure Start facilitated access among low‐income families, and could perhaps be replicated as implementation of the free entitlement continues to be expanded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: UK government policy views collaboration with outstanding schools as a way of helping apparently less successful schools to close the attainment gap. However, there has been little debate about criteria for defining a school's success or failure. Moreover it is unclear which aspects of outstanding schools could readily transfer to other schools. These questions applied when EducAid, an NGO with schools for disadvantaged children in Sierra Leone, was asked to provide a programme of workshops for teachers in neighbouring schools. Aims: (i) To establish whether EducAid's results justified agreeing to the request; (ii) To identify key features of EducAid schools that could be transferable to neighbouring schools; (iii) To propose key features of an evaluation. Methods: Collection of national and local data and analysis of key features of EducAid schools that could, and could not, transfer to other schools. Findings: The limited available data supported a decision that EducAid schools should offer workshops for other schools. Key components of the programme are identified, with a design including an ambitious evaluation framework. Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first time that teachers in successful schools have been asked to provide a structured programme of workshops for teachers in neighbouring schools. Discussion focuses on the challenge of inter-school collaboration in a low-income country. This includes the tension between the models of pedagogy and interpersonal relations promoted in the CPD and the constraints imposed by the public examination system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a pilot study where consultancy supervision was introduced into a primary school for pupils with SEBD in England. School staff engaged with supervision and evaluated their experience through a quantitative and qualitative methodology. The paper explores the nature of supervision, the qualities of the supervisory relationship and the areas of school staff lives to which supervision can be relevant. The project is set in context through reviewing current literature and professional guidelines on supervision. The positive results of the project are described and recommendations and conclusions drawn from the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background There is some evidence that vocabulary intervention is effective for children, although further research is needed to confirm the impact of intervention within contexts of social disadvantage. Very little is known about the effectiveness of interventions to increase adolescent knowledge of cross-curriculum words. Aims To evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention programme designed to develop adolescents' knowledge of cross-curriculum words. Methods & Procedures Participants were 35 adolescents aged between 12 and 14 years who were at risk of educational underachievement with low scores on a range of assessments. Participants received a 10-week intervention programme in small groups, targeting 10 cross-curriculum words (e.g., 'summarize'). This was evaluated using a bespoke outcome measure (the Word Knowledge Profile). The study involved an AABA design, with a repeated baseline, delayed intervention cohort and blind assessment. Intervention included both semantic and phonological information about the target words and involved the adolescents using the words in multiple contexts. Outcomes & Results Results were promising and participants' knowledge of the targeted words significantly increased following intervention. Progress was demonstrated on the Word Knowledge Profile on the item requiring participants to define the word (for the summer intervention group only). This increase in depth of knowledge was seen on taught words but not on matched non-taught words. Conclusions & Implications Cross-curriculum words are not consistently understood by adolescents at risk of low educational attainment within a low socio-economic context. A 10-week intervention programme resulted in some increases to the depth of knowledge of targeted cross-curriculum words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article interrogates childhood politics through a case study of voluntary sector responses to benefit sanctions in the UK. This article explores the absent 'voices' of children in this resistance and considers, in contrast, the possibilities of engaging with children's perspectives in political endeavours. We argue for the importance of moving away from both simple platitudes about listening to 'the voice of the child' and the political retreatism that results from a sole focus on the impossibilities of representation. Whilst aware of inevitable power relations between children and adults, we suggest 'solidarity' as an animating concept, emphasising attention to the processes whereby people are differently impoverished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Living in poverty disadvantages young children reducing school readiness. ‘Pedagogy of listening’ can potentially support resilience remediating against poverty’s negative effects. Little, though, is known about how early childhood education and care (ECEC) practitioners work with children in poverty and the attainment gap between such children and their peers remains significant within England and the US. This article reports research using a mixed methodology which explored these issues in localities across both these countries. We argue a dominant technocratic model of early years provision in these contexts creates normalisation and diversity reduction. This, and austerity measures, stymie pedagogical space and practice organising out listening to children in poverty. We suggest this may help explain why the attainment gap remains so stubbornly resistant to reduction across these countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background Organisations in England's National Health Service (NHS) are required to have 'did not attend' (DNA) guidelines to help deal with the 'unseen child'. Aims To map DNA and associated guidelines in paediatric services, examine differences in safeguarding response and advice in the guidelines and explore the experience of guideline users. Methods A mapping approach was used to locate current DNA guidelines on English NHS organisations' websites. Analysis of the guidelines was supplemented with qualitative data from those who produce, monitor or use them. Results Fewer than 8% of English NHS organisations had up-to-date guidelines in the public domain, though a further 41% stated that they had a DNA/similar policy in place or had an out-of-date guideline on their website. Advice to healthcare providers about the steps to take when a child DNAs fell into five categories: reflection and review; direct interaction with the family; indirect interaction with the family; liaison with internal colleagues; and external referral. Interviews with eight individuals led to the identification of four themes. The management of information flows was central to the effective management of DNA. Respondents also reported seeking support and advice from others. While all respondents spoke about the importance of supporting the family, the child's needs were central to dealing with non-attendance, and respondents demonstrated awareness of wider risk discourses. Conclusions We consider the implications of the work and suggest that evidence-informed guidelines developed nationally but tailored to specific services might be helpful for providers and users alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In 2011/12 approximately 2.3 million children, 17% of children in the UK, were estimated to be in relative poverty. Cigarette smoking is expensive and places an additional burden on household budgets, and is strongly associated with socioeconomic deprivation. The aim of this study was to provide an illustrative first estimate of the extent to which parental smoking exacerbates child poverty in the UK. Methods: Findings from the 2012 Households Below Average Income report and the 2012 Opinions and Lifestyle Survey were combined to estimate the number of children living in poor households containing smokers; the expenditure of typical smokers in these households on tobacco; and the numbers of children drawn into poverty if expenditure on smoking is subtracted from household income. Results: 1.1 million children - almost half of all children in poverty - were estimated to be living in poverty with at least one parent who smokes; and a further 400,000 would be classed as being in poverty if parental tobacco expenditure were subtracted from household income. Conclusions: Smoking exacerbates poverty for a large proportion of children in the UK. Tobacco control interventions which effectively enable low income smokers to quit can play an important role in reducing the financial burden of child poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of the Mayor's Fund for the Housebound begins in 1907, but long before then a well organised annual effort involving dozens of volunteers, supported by countless donations, took place every Christmas. This annual undertaking was organised by the Poor Children's Christmas Dinner Fund, which was a consistent feature of the patchwork of philanthropic effort in the town of Northampton. Reinvented several times, the Mayor's fund provided a focus for the civic elite and its history speaks to the continuing importance of local philanthropic initiative in provincial England during the twentieth century and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviewing two of the latest reports by social mobility tsar, Alan Milburn and 'social justice' champion, Iain Duncan Smith, the article examines the politics and policy of the Coalition's fairness strategy and the jostling for position that is going on behind the scenes. Whilst continuing to pay lip service to the goal of ending child poverty, the government is seeking to redefine the problem, away from a narrow focus on relative low income. Beneath the rhetoric, the article highlights the close similarities between the 'new' and 'old' approaches, finding that the evidence behind the government's claims is unconvincing. Far from offering a 'step-change' in provision, it concludes that in the new age of austerity the Coalition will struggle to make any positive progress on tackling poverty and improving the relative life chances of disadvantaged children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disabled children are significantly more likely to grow up in poverty than their non-disabled peers. We used longitudinal data from Waves 3–7 (2001–2005) of the UK Families and Children Study to explore the relationship between the presence of a disabled child in the family and poverty transitions. When compared to other families, families supporting a disabled child are more likely to be exposed to persistent or recurrent poverty, less likely to escape from an episode of poverty and more likely to descend into poverty. However, statistically controlling for the effects of salient family characteristics either attenuates, eliminates or reverses these associations. That is, when compared to other families with similar levels of personal and social resources, families supporting a disabled child are no more likely to escape from or descend into poverty than other families. Results are discussed in relation to the need for social policy to invest in strengthening the broader capabilities of families of disabled children. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study uses longitudinal data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study to show the extent to which episodic and more persistent poverty in early childhood and the lack of other family resources disadvantage children at the start of their school careers in terms of whether they have achieved the target indicator of 'good level of achievement' on the Foundation Stage Profile. Positive parenting is shown to be an important contributor to school achievement that matters for children, regardless of poverty experience or family disadvantage. It is also shown to be an important mediator in redressing the effects of poverty and disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the history of debates over the US Head Start programme (1965), Early Head Start (1994) and the UK Sure Start initiative (1998), as a window on to policy transfer. In all the three, the aim was that early intervention could offer a means of boosting children’s educational attainment and of countering the wider effects of poverty on development. Nevertheless, there were also important differences between them. The first part of the article looks at UK responses to Head Start, the second at Early Head Start and the creation and subsequent direction taken by Sure Start. In the Conclusion, we sum up the arguments relating to Head Start and Sure Start and offer some broader reflections on policy transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Sure Start has been a flagship policy for the UK Labour Government since 1998. Its aim was to improve the life chances of children under five years of age who live in areas of socio-economic disadvantage by means of multi-agency, multidisciplinary Sure Start Local Programmes (SSLPs). Speech and language therapists have played a key part in many SSLPs, and have had the opportunity to extend their roles. Despite the scrutiny paid to Sure Start, there has been no comprehensive analysis of speech and language therapists' contribution to date. Studies have focused on individual programmes or small samples: there has been no attempt to collate the full range of practice. As Sure Start evolved and Children's Centres emerged, it became vital to learn from the Sure Start experience and inform the mainstreaming of practice, before the window of opportunity closed. Aims: The survey aims were, firstly, to identify the range of practice amongst speech and language therapists working in SSLPs, highlighting new practice, and, secondly, to categorize the practices according to the tiered model of UK health and social services of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT 2006). Methods & Procedures: An online mixed-method, semi-structured survey was designed to elicit primarily quantitative and categorical data. A total of 501 Sure Start Local Programmes were invited to take part. A total of 128 speech and language therapists responded, giving a response rate of 26%. A descriptive analysis of the response data was undertaken. Outcomes & Results: A total of 103 respondents (80%) reported maintaining a clinical role as well as extending their roles to include preventative services. Of those 103 respondents, 69% were able to see referred children at a younger average age and 80% saw them more quickly than before Sure Start. A wide variety of preventative practice was identified. A widening of access to speech and language therapist was reported in terms of venues used and hours offered. Respondents reported on their use of evaluation or outcome measures, which was at a higher rate for new practice than for established practice. A total of 121 respondents (95%) reported at least one example of new practice; 103 (80%) reported at least one use of evaluation or outcome measures. The tiered model of UK health and social services provided an effective way of categorizing practice. Conclusions & Implications: A categorized record of Sure Start speech and language therapist is presented that may contribute to establishing a broad curriculum of practice for speech and language therapist in the early years. The effectiveness of the practices is not investigated: suggestions are made for further research to develop the evidence base. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to broaden the discussion of the efficacy of the Child Support Enforcement program in the United Kingdom. Many are skeptical of the program, claiming that the UK's system is meant only to recuperate public expenditures on low-income children in lieu of combating child poverty. We argue that, in addition to any assessment of the program's ability to reduce child poverty directly, any child-centric evaluation must also consider the counterfactual: How many poor people would there have been in the absence of the program? Research findings from the United States Child Support Enforcement program, a program that is similar to that found in the UK, suggest that conclusions from evaluations that incorporate the counterfactual may be different from those that critics of the UK Child Support Enforcement program reach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]