Pupils with unemployed parents 'make least progress'

December 15 2010

Primary school pupils with unemployed parents make far less progress than those with parents working in management and professional jobs.

This is according to research by the Institute of Education, which revealed that children's progress during their early years of school is driven by their parents' social class.

It was found that on average, children from middle-class backgrounds are likely to be eight months ahead of poorer pupils by the age of seven.

"The finding that social class is still such a strong predictor of differences in the cognitive and educational scores of five and seven-year-olds confounds a good deal of received wisdom," said Dr Alice Sullivan, principal author of the study. "For example, Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, recently blamed low levels of social mobility on class-based differences in parenting."

She added that while parenting is important, it is not enough to tackle inequality in the classroom.

The government is planning to introduce a Pupil Premium payment, directing additional resources towards schools with a high number of disadvantaged students.

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