Brighter poor children losing ground

Bright children from poorer backgrounds are being overtaken by their more affluent counterparts as they grow older, a report has found.

Although declining social mobility since the 1970s has now stabilised, Britain was ranked bottom of developed countries on comparisons of social mobility.

Children’s life chances were found to be overwhelmingly determined by the income and status of their parents.

Scores in developmental tests for children from the poorest 20 per cent of families fell from 88 per cent at age three to 65 per cent at age five.

But scores for the least able children from the richest families moved up from 15 per cent at age three to 45 per cent at age five.

If this trend continued, the least bright but richer children would have overtaken the poorer but brighter children by the age of seven.

The same inequalities persisted to further education, with 44 per cent of young people from the richest 20 per cent of families obtaining a degree, compared to only 10 per cent from the poorest 20 per cent of families.

The report was produced by children’s charity the Sutton Trust and the London School of Economics.

Recent Changes in Intergenerational Mobility in the UK