Poverty and low educational achievement in Wales

This Viewpoint suggests that the Welsh education system should combine both learning- and teaching focused interventions and student, family and community-focused interventions. It found that:

• Parental involvement, extra-curricular activities and mentoring have the best evidence base of all family- and community-based initiatives.
• Recent JRF studies show that some attitudes, aspirations and behaviours (AAB) interventions may contribute to improvements in educational achievement for children in poverty in Wales. However, there needs to be more detailed evidence on their impact, especially for Wales-specific programmes.
• Future interventions in this area should be rigorously trialled and evaluated before being rolled out widely.