School is failing poorest children

Education is failing to enable children from poorer backgrounds to improve their quality of life, a report has found.

Children in the UK are now less likely to be socially mobile than a generation ago, and UK children fared the worse of all developed countries surveyed in the study.

The report, produced by education charity the Sutton Trust in conjunction with the London School of Economics, called for a cross-party commission to be set up to address the issue.

Founder of the Sutton Trust, Sir Peter Lampl, said that education opportunities had gone disproportionately to the more well-off, and that the problem was so deeply rooted it went ‘beyond party politics’.

The Sutton Trust also said there should be improved provision of early years education to prevent children falling behind by the age of three.