"Poverty-proofing" scheme launches in Oldham schools

Teams from the charity Children North East will be visiting an initial 10 schools in the borough, speaking to children and young people to help identify the barriers families living in poverty are experiencing every day.

Topics of discussion will include issues such as how free school meals are delivered, how uniforms are bought, the process around non-uniform days, present-buying for teachers, the cost of after-school clubs, funding for school trips and much more.

Children North East will then use insight from their visits and unique methodology to train local staff. This will help schools to address inequalities, reduce the stigma around poverty, and help find ways to break the link between educational attainment and financial background.

Councillor Amanda Chadderton visited Beever Primary School in Coldhurst last week to find out more about how staff and students are dealing with the ongoing Cost of Living crisis. The school, which is seeing first hand how hard families are struggling, is helping in practical ways such as by giving out coats to students that need them.

Cllr Chadderton said: “We know that, sadly, children and young people are being affected by the financial challenges their families are facing - and that children who grow up in poverty can see a significant detrimental impact on both their current wellbeing and their future life prospects.

"Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that adults who lived in poverty as children have significantly greater than average chances of lower educational outcomes, earning lower wages and being unemployed. This is through no fault of their own, and we must do all we can to try and break down these inequalities, to give Oldham's young people the very best opportunities in life.

"That's why we're working with Children North East, to enable schools to have a much more complex picture of the needs of their children and give them some new insight into how we can all work together to tackle the problems we face.

"This work is just one part of Oldham Council’s £3m We Can Help support campaign that’s been put together to help residents through this incredibly difficult time. If you or someone you know is struggling, then please get in touch to see how we can support you.”

Hathershaw College is one of the schools that’s taking part in the scheme. Their Principal, Mark Giles, said: “We have had previous involvement with this project in the latter stages of 2019 and learnt a lot from it.  However, we want to continue to build further capacity in school to respond to the cost of living crisis as things have definitely become more difficult for some of the community we serve following the pandemic. 

"Whilst we already do a lot to support the community, we know that there is always more that can be done”.

Lorna Nicoll, Poverty Proofing(c) the School Day Team Manager at Children North East, is delivering the first round of training in Oldham schools. She said: “Our Poverty Proofing(c) work enables us to get a complex overview of a school. We do consultations with students, parents, staff and governors to understand the challenges they face, in an inclusive, straightforward and supportive process. We then work with a school’s leadership team to identify ways to reduce the impact of poverty on students. We also make sure to include training for staff and governors on the causes, consequences and impact of poverty on children, young people and their families and ways to identify and mitigate barriers in their roles.

“We know that inequality and poverty are not issues we can fix for a child, but we’re here to make sure schools understand what they can do to best support students in those situations.”

Visit http://www.oldham.gov.uk/wecanhelp for more information on what help is available from Oldham Council.

Visit https://children-ne.org.uk/poverty-proofing-the-school-day/ for more information on Children North East and their Poverty Proofing work.