What will happen to the Children of the Millennium now?

Gemma Fagbadegun

It’s been a painful few months in education, with the plan to extend Free School Meals axed, and an end to the Building Schools for the Future programme at the forefront of discussions. We knew the cuts were coming; we knew they had to come, but it doesn’t make things any easier.

At the end of the day, if tough choices have to be made, then it is arguably better to direct the available resources to teaching. Our worry is that the cuts will have a greatest impact on poor young people who are already badly disadvantaged in the education system. The Government’s proposed ‘pupil premium’ may go some way to help, but only if it is directed by Headteachers to effective programmes that really make a difference to the most disadvantaged children.

I’ve recently been reading through some of the findings of the Millennium Cohort Study from the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, which has tracked the lives of over 15,000 children born in the millennium, with an emphasis on ethnic minorities and disadvantaged families. It covers topics such as parenting, school choice, income, parent’s employment & education and neighbourhood.

Even at age 5, the research already showed much of what we expected: ‘there are ...signs of a greater social divide between families in [social] housing and other tenures (such as owner-occupation)’* than in previous years. The reports also stated that ‘children from lower-income families with less highly educated parents are less advanced in their development than those with more advantaged starts to life’**.

With the changes taking place under our new government, I’m really interested to follow the progress of the Millennium Cohorts; especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. How their lives are affected could be key to understanding just how the decisions made today might affect social mobility in the long term.

* 'Millenium Cohort Study Briefing 7: Neighbourhood and Residential Mobility' by Sosthenes Ketende, John 'Mac' McDonald and Heather Joshi
** 'Millennium Cohort Study Briefing 6: Teacher Assessment at age 5' by Kirstine Hansen and Anna Vignoles