The circumstances children are born into have an enormous impact on their life chances. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds suffer educationally from the beginning of their lives.
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The circumstances children are born into have an enormous impact on their life chances. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds suffer educationally from the beginning of their lives. Research shows: • Poorer children are more likely to have lower birth weight, poorer health, lower personal, social and emotional development, and worse communication, language and literacy skills than their peers. (Marmot M, Fair Society, Healthy Lives – Strategic review of health inequalities in England post-2010 (2010); Field F, The Foundation Years: Preventing poor children becoming poor adults – The report of the Independent Review on Poverty and Life Chances (2010)) • Despite early signs of potential, poorer children tend to fall behind in primary school. (Feinstein, 2003, 2004) • Children living in poverty have lower scores in measures of their cognitive ability at ages three, five and seven years.
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Parents, families and the home environment are key to children’s early development – good parenting really helps children’s progress. Being a good parent is a lot harder when you have financial or relationship difficulties, are unsupported or have not been parented well yourself.