Impact of Poverty on primary education

JRF and Save the Children have published a paper based on a survey of 220 primary school children from a range of religious and socio-economic backgrounds.

Key findings:
- Children from all backgrounds felt that education was important. Younger children are more likely to feel that learning is fun whilst older children associate learning with positive career prospects, however older children in disadvantaged schools are less likely to describe learning as fun.
- Children from all backgrounds expressed a desire to be involved in their learning and to have "learning by doing".
- All children had relatively high aspirations of their future but children in advantaged schools aspired to higher paying professional jobs.
- Boys as young as 8 are becoming disenchanted with school and starting to disengage.
- Only children in disadvantaged schools felt worried about their safety travelling to and from school and had concerns about school vandalism.
- Children in disadvantaged schools were considerably more aware of the costs associated with schooling.
- Residential trips by students posed a significant cost, even for the relatively well off parents.
- Children in better off schools see extra curricular activities as "normal" whereas those in poorer schools see them as optional extras.