Oxfordshire NEU Summer Newsletter 2025 - Flipbook - Page 10
Child Poverty
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One of the other big campaigns I have been working on for the last five years is the NEU s Child
Poverty campaign, representing the NEU at a national Education Renewed summit last summer.
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At Conference, I was interviewed by a range of journalists to coincide with the union s press released
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on child poverty and its effects on children s physical development and learning.
There was considerable press coverage on the interview in The Morning Star, The Guardian, Schools
Week and even The Daily Mail! The link to one of the articles is here.
We all know the impact that poverty and hunger has on children; there has been an increase in
families who simply cannot afford for their children to take part in school trips or after-school clubs
as well as affording basic equipment, so too often schools, nurseries and colleges have to step in.
What often gets forgotten by the media is that many children living in poverty live in a household
where both parents work and this has been made even more of a challenge by the two-child benefit
cap against which the NEU has been campaigning.
In the UK today, 31 per cent of our children
3 4.5 million 3 are trapped in poverty. That means nine
pupils in an average class of 30 have been let down.
Wealth is a significant predictor of how well
children get on in school. By GCSE level, poorer pupils attain on average 19 months behind their
wealthier peers. We also know that some children are more likely to be affected by poverty than
others, such as Black children and those with SEND.
This cannot be right, which is why we are campaigning for an education system where every child can
thrive, and no child is left behind.
No
school
should
have
to
run
a
food
bank
3
however it is a national scandal that schools are
now the biggest providers of foodbanks in the
country.
Join
our
Free
School
Meals
for
All
campaign and add your voice to the growing call
that no child is left behind.
Chris Dutton (NEC District 8)
