Frank Field
AN INQUIRY by Birkenhead MP Frank Field has uncovered “gob-smacking” education handicaps suffered by children from deprived background.
The coalition’s “poverty tsar” found that, by the age of 10, bright poor children had fallen behind low-achieving youngsters from richer backgrounds.
That will be the main conclusion in his interim report on life chances to be sent to premier David Cameron next week.
His findings are based on research which looked at the abilities of pre-school children and then at their achievements five years later.
“The gob-smacking findings are that, as children turn up for their first day at school, they possess a wide range of abilities,” he said.
“Although children from the lowest-income families are more likely to be at the bottom range . . . and there they remained when a second set of tests were taken at 10.
