Turning the Page on Poverty: new resource for teachers and school staff

Child Poverty Action Group has co-produced a resource with Children North East and the National Education Union, aimed at helping teachers and school staff tackle poverty.

Along with Children North East, we developed the resource based on our years of experience working directly with schools to reduce financial barriers to learning. 

Published in the context of increasing levels of hardship for families, the toolkit highlights the crucial role that schools can play to support struggling families. 

‘Turning the page on poverty’ is a practical guide for staff, with information on poverty and ideas for how to  reduce the costs of the school day. It includes sections on a range of topics related to child poverty in the classroom, including: 

• How to talk about poverty, including ideas like creating safe spaces to discuss it with pupils, using art, drama and play to talk about poverty-related stigma, and ways to address discriminatory or negative views.
• How schools can reduce poverty stigma and school-related costs, including ideas such as setting up second-hand uniform shops, giving advance notice of trips to parents to enable them to budget, and providing resource areas for pupils for creative homework. 
• How schools can support families affected by poverty, for example by helping them access entitlements and financial support, running ‘extended schools’ programmes, and signposting families to local support services.