Define the main features of an inner-city school and give one example of how deprivation might affect achievement. What has been the impact of recent educational change and legislation of their work?

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Assignment 2 – Define the main features of an inner-city school and give one example of how deprivation might affect achievement. What has been the impact of recent educational change and legislation of their work?

The Oxford Pocket Dictionary (2008) explains that, inner city is the area near the centre of a city, especially when associated with social and economic problems. I understand inner city as being an area in the city that suffers with poverty, meaning that the people are deprived of certain things because they have a lack of money. Gilbert F (2004) explains that, poverty can also mean that a person lacks the essentials for a minimum standard of well-being and life, the condition of being ‘poor’ and the condition of being without adequate food and money and in need of help. There are two types of poverty, which are absolute poverty and relative poverty. Absolute poverty is defined as anyone without a set of minimum necessities of essentials for living and relative poverty defines income or resources in relation to the average. Poverty - the facts (2007) explains that, growing up in poverty can affect a child’s physical and cognitive development and their health and well-being. According to Poverty - the facts (2007), children born into poverty are more likely to have a lower birth weight, high infant mortality and poorer health than the better off children. Poverty can cause such conditions like, homelessness and chronic overcrowding, which have a significant impact upon a child’s physical, mental and social development and well-being. Poverty and unsatisfactory living standards may cause health problems and absence from school.

Teaching in an inner city school must be extremely challenging. However, it could also be a very positive experience because it would very interesting to work with children from different countries and cultures, which can be great because you are then able to celebrate the different heritages in the classroom, which will help the children and the teacher to create build a better understanding of them. You would be able to learn a great deal about the social and economic backgrounds of the children and how these impact upon their lives. However, they are major disadvantages to inner city schools too. According to Gilbert F (2004), some of these disadvantages include, higher levels of socio-economic deprivation are closely associated with lower GCSE attainment, low nutrition levels, huge language barriers, those living in poor housing conditions have a lower life expectancy and those poorer pupils, which are those that are eligible for free school meals, play truant more frequently than more affluent pupils.

Children in areas of social deprivation can face a variety of issues that present difficulties for them and the school. However, that does not mean that behavioural issues are always at the root of a school being labelled as ‘challenging.’ Issues such as poverty, parents’ working patterns, for example, casual or shift work, a high proportion of a community whose first language is not English, migrant workers can all affect children, their schools and their communities. Ultimately, working in a challenging inner city school is about addressing low achievement, whatever its causes.

The Guardian (21 November 2003) explains that, schools in some of the most deprived urban areas of England are still struggling to raise standards despite billions of extra pounds of extra government funding. According to The Guardian (21 November 2003), OFSTED analysed the performance of inner city schools 10 years on from an earlier study. Within its sample, The Guardian (21 November 2003) stated that just over one in 10 primary schools and just over one quarter of secondary schools were found to be struggling to make and maintain improvements.

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         Should you teach in an inner city school? (2006) explains that, recent initiatives have introduced the specialist school status and the extended schools system. The latter programme encourages schools to open for longer hours during the week and at the weekend, so that they can offer their library, sporting facilities and IT facilities to all children in the area. The idea here is to provide a positive attitude in the local community, to help break down the barriers to achievement and to promote schools as good places to be.

        One aspect of deprivation I am going to focus on ...

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