Two ever-popular and increasingly connected topics of debate, child poverty and social mobility have been high on my own agenda this week. Starting on Monday with a lunchtime debate hosted by Policy Exchange, entitled Towards a Better Child Poverty Target. Here an eminent panel of five, including Frank Field MP argued that the targets set to reduce child poverty were unhelpful.  Kicking off the debate, Frank provoked the audience with real life examples of child poverty, and a heartfelt plea in support of all those children who are subject to the casual cruelty of ignorant adults.  He concluded by asking Mr Cameron to read his report. (Leaving me to wonder how he knew the Prime Minister had not already done so.)

Next up was a representative of the End Child Poverty Campaign, arguing that we should have targets, not only since poverty damages children’s life chances, but since lower income equates with poor educational attainment which in turn leads to poverty. The Director of the Policy Exchange then suggested the measurement of 60% of the median income was somewhat arbitrary and needed to include relative poverty.  He challenged how measurements can be deceiving, and statistically getting someone out of poverty may still leave them poor.  He challenged the audience by saying that we did not really understand what caused poverty.  For example we always assume that unemployment leads to poverty, whilst research from the Institute of Fiscal Studies was unable to link higher employment with a reduction in poverty. Much was made about poverty of the ‘in work’ population (something we often see at LEYF), itself mitigated to some degree by Child Tax Credits; although now a situation clearly challenged by the Chancellor’s budget decision to reduce access to tax credits.

The editor of the Spectator, Fraser Nelson told us that poverty was not sexy and it certainly did not sell newspapers. Apparently, the public simply don’t get the notion of poverty.  They don’t see people starving and so are unable to understand the issue; it is in effect a hidden problem. And it seemed no-one had a solution that might change this.

Finally, the debate began to focus on Early Years and the importance of early intervention. Reference was made to the negative impact of maternal deprivation, along with persistent and severe poverty on children’s development and their resulting low attainment, which in turn leads to lower levels of lifetime success.

The same subject was also raised on Tuesday by the APPG on social mobility, whose report looks at the causes of social mobility and what that means for policy makers. Called 7 Key Truths about Social Mobility, this must-read report tells us that in fact we don’t yet fully understand social mobility. It points out that to have true social mobility, some people have to go up and others go down, and goes on to say that social mobility is stuck in the UK; apparently those of us in my age bracket (guess) have seen greater social mobility than our children.  It may be that education is the factor differentiating us from our parents, and so is the most effective lever.  Nowadays it seems less effective, as so many young people already have a more equitable start.  Either way, the seven truths they found were:

1. The point of greatest leverage for social mobility is what happens between the ages of 0 and 3, and primarily in the home
2. You can break the cycle through education
3. The most important controllable factor is the quality of your teaching
4. It’s also about what happens after the school bell rings
5. University is the top determinant of later opportunities – so pre-18 attainment is key
6. Later pathways to mobility are possible, given the will and support
7. Personal resilience and emotional wellbeing are the missing link in the chain

Unsurprisingly, none of this is new to me (or I’m sure most of the readers of this blog). In fact, it’s this very understanding that drove me into the arms of cultural capital research which now permeates much of what we do at LEYF, from both an economic and social perspective. It’s summed up in this equally relevant interim report on Sure Start delivery in 2011/12, produced by the APPG for SureStart. It states that

All those involved in providing early education and childcare services should encourage a broad social mix of children to attend high quality childcare services. They should address any barriers that may hinder participation by vulnerable children, such as geographical access, the cost of transport or a sense of discrimination and stigma.

It immediately brings to mind a recent example of cultural capital at work in our Holcroft Community Nursery. In this case, two children were on a holiday placement having recently left for school. Chatting away happily – and blissfully ignoring the adults seated nearby who only tuned in ‘mid flow’ – the conversation went something like this…

Child #1:  “Key Managers?? Yes, Sherrine is my Key Manager.”

Child #2:  “What does Key Manager mean?”

Child #1:  “It’s your friend to tell you what to do, make sure you’re OK. Like the leader they are always the oldest.”

Child #2:  “Oh, OK.”

I could draw a number of conclusions from this, but the most powerful for me was the sense of connection and confidence those children had about how things work.  Cultural capital is the means of firstly helping children gain knowledge and then continue to develop and create it by understanding the system, before sharing this knowledge and making new connections. This is what helps children get on, and it’s when children struggle to understand the system that they are truly disadvantaged.

This week has been rather a fest of networking, the most noteworthy of which was one evening and one day attending the Conservative Party Conference.   A Conference virgin, I was unprepared for the sheer intensity of the networking, posturing and positioning among the very male audience. It put me in mind of a quote by Armstrong Williams that ‘Networking is an essential part of building wealth’.

The conference audience was seduced by the charisma of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove,  lapping up their passionate espousals of their pet topics, London and Education.  I was surprised their boyish charm won over such a male audience, but no one would argue (in that hall) against the call to arms to save children and the nation from poverty. Michael Gove spoke eloquently for 40 minutes without notes, praising and celebrating the importance of good schools, successful academies and the development of free schools.  I dropped a note to him afterwards asking that he now replicate the same power and passion in support of Early Years, making sure we mitigate the risk of disadvantage by celebrating great nurseries and committed staff whilst stopping the drain of very small children into schools.

The conference format included panels of real people introduced by ministers or members of their teams which were designed to marry pragmatism with policy.  They were well received, especially young people explaining how they overcame the consequences of previous government policies.  The only thing missing from the panel was social enterprise; maybe next year! Although I do have to wonder how many of us will still be left clinging to the cliff edge of this recession this time next year.  According to Allison Ogden Newton of Social Enterprise London, social enterprises are currently trying to scale the north face of business, which makes them heroic. Christopher Reeve, the original Superman, said a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. The Tory Conference seemed to applaud this principle, so let’s hope that a few of us in the world of social enterprise will win out for another year and be there ready to present to all conferences.

On Thursday, we enjoyed an visit from the deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg and the Secretary of Sate for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith where they officially launched changes to the rules . One of our trustees texted me to say we were beginning to collect ministers like Top Trumps.  What I had learned at the conference is that meeting them was of no use unless you could get their ear and interest.

Nick Clegg visits Marsham Street Community Nursery

I was therefore pleased to be able to knobble Mr Clegg and suggest that his Social Mobility policy might need a push to get it more visible.  When it was launched Mr Clegg talked about fairness and the means everyone having the chance to do well, irrespective of their beginnings. He said that

Fairness means that no one is held back by the circumstances of their birth. Fairness demands that what counts is not the school you went to or the jobs your parents did, but your ability and your ambition.”

I suggested that he consider how childcare and Children Centres can be strongly woven into this ambition for fairness and extend the principle of early intervention.

I also used my fast developing networking skills to persuade Iain Duncan Smith to consider our Step into Learning programme, which helps us prepare NEETS for the world of work as part of our growing LEYF apprenticeship offer. He eagerly promised to come back and talk some more.

I finished a long and arduous week judging the Nursery of the Year for the NMT awards. It was quite a positive experience since the five finalists I met – chosen randomly from across England – were passionate, engaged and genuinely keen to give children and parents the best childcare experience possible. This was contrasted by a rather depressing article in the Evening Standard (7^th Oct, Girl is forced to stay at nursery as all primary schools are full).

Ironically, staying in nursery until you are rising six is how we should be operating, not pushing children into school at four and thinking it’s OK; oh how the battle to save children from too early schooling is no nearer to winning. In the meantime, children in Finland happily play at nursery until they are six – and then leave school as the most successful young people in Europe, ready and more capable to take on the world. It seems to me that it’s a wise society indeed that truly values and invests in its nurseries.