Living standards may affect schools standards

Tackling Poverty Key to Improving School Standards

Economic and social deprivation have a bigger impact on children's performance at school than class size, teaching methods or homework, said the study by the Centre for Economic Performance.

The report also claims the best way to reduce future unemployment would be to focus on the performance of the worst performers rather than trying to force up average standards reached by pupils in Britain's schools.

A study of children born in 1958 and 1970 showed there was no evidence that factors such as primary school class size, teaching methods, or streaming and setting had any impact on the standards of numeracy and literacy reached by pupils.

The proportion of a primary school's intake coming from a middle-class background was far more important and had a significant positive impact for all pupils.

Focusing on maths may not be the key

"Over the long run, the most powerful `educational' policy is arguably one which tackles child poverty, rather than any modest intervention in schooling," according to author Peter Robinson of the Centre for Economic Performance.

The report also said schools should be trying to raise the standards of the bottom 10-20% performers, rather than trying to raise the levels reached by pupils on average because the lowest achievers were more likely to find it difficult to find work.

It also said there was a danger of too much emphasis being put on standards achieved in maths tests - where Britons perform notably worse than in other countries.

The World at One's Alex Brodie asks Peter Robinson if the Government's policy is barking up the wrong tree Dur: 2'39"

Evidence of a link between maths performance and economic performance of a country was weak, the report said, and problems could be more to do with the structure of the maths curriculum rather than weaknesses in the overall education system.

This was reinforced by the same students' relatively high performance in science tests. The findings also suggested numeracy and literacy skills should be tested separately in Standard Assessment Tasks sat by all children, the report said.