Low Educational Attainment

Debate between Mark Williams and David Ward

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

I do not intend today to give the Minister a big work load today, but I want to lay down a marker. I thank Catch22, Save the Children, the Child Poverty Action Group and Michele Sutton, the principal at Bradford college, for contacting me and providing me with useful information, as well as useful questions that I shall no doubt put in written form later.

A few years ago, I was on the second largest council estate in Bradford in the youth centre, where I have been on the committee for probably nearly 30 years now. I came out of the door and a mobile library was outside. I decided to go and chat to the driver. A young woman got on the mobile library bus with a toddler. The buses are set up with a play area with Lego bricks and so on at one end. I remember clearly that the toddler got on and started to move towards the books, but the mother said, “You don’t want those; they are only books.” It is funny how things stick in one’s mind, but that said so much about the possibilities and life chances that that child probably had.

The research on early years, and indeed pre-early years, is pretty compelling. I know that today I am speaking to people who know about the subject and are concerned about it, and I am not here to teach anyone to suck eggs, but I want to mention the “Meaningful Differences” research by Betty Hart and Todd Risley at the university of Kansas some years ago. It showed that parents from what they called the professional class had interactions—words that were spoken—with their children at a rate of, on average, 2,150 per hour. Among those from what they called working class backgrounds the rate was 1,250 per hour, and for those from what they called welfare families it was 620 words per hour. That is happening hour after hour, day in, day out. The cumulative effect of that in the first three years, if extrapolated, was a difference of 20 million words between the professional class and the welfare class, and that is before we consider the quality of the language, or the social interactions happening alongside language development.

Clearly, many of the measures that we have put in place start far too late in a child’s life. We can start at any point, but, to take the example of universities, I am very aware of what happens there in the way of pastoral care and financial support for young people from deprived backgrounds. In addition, there is the Aimhigher campaign to encourage more people from disadvantaged backgrounds to go to university. Work is done in sixth forms to encourage applications, and in schools at key stages 3 and 4 to encourage staying on into the sixth form. In year 6 there is help with the difficult transition from primary to secondary school, and other work is done in schools and off site with those who struggle academically. Primary schools give additional support, including mentoring and one-to-one support. Nurture rooms have been created, and there has been a development of parental involvement and learning enrichment programmes in those environments. At the pre-school stage there is early years work, with Sure Start children’s centres to provide help to children.

The sad fact, however, is how little of that works. Despite all the things I have mentioned, the gap between a child from a deprived background and one from a more affluent background increases as they go through the education system—the disadvantage widens. That is incredible but true. I have secured today’s debate not because I have answers, but because it is clear from all the good work done by many organisations that none of us seems to have them.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising this important issue. Perhaps I may add a slight complication into the mix regarding the problem that he has elegantly identified: an urban-rural divide. He was careful not to characterise the problem as an urban phenomenon, and I am sure that he will agree that there is also a challenge for rural areas, where often it is difficult to measure at the base the problems of social exclusion because of the dispersal of rural households and the frequent proximity of deprived families to apparent affluence. That has an effect on educational achievement and the capacity of authorities to deliver responsive measures to the children in question.

The problem is not just urban but rural, so there are particular challenges for hon. Members who represent rural areas. However, I appreciate that as the debate covers England, the Minister cannot respond specifically to my Cardiganshire concerns.