Streaming ‘ holds back pupils from poor homes’

SECONDARY schools should stop dividing children into sets or streams because it harms those from poorer homes, a report said yesterday.

Children from disadvantaged backgrounds put into lower sets get worse teaching and no encouragement from their schools, it said.

And it warned that white British children from low income homes are performing worse at school than any other group – because ethnic minority children from poor backgrounds get much better help and support from their parents.

Pressure for an end to setting, which divides children by ability in particular subjects, and streaming, which divides them into different ability bands across all subjects, came from the Government’s Social Mobility Commission.

It runs counter to Theresa May’s campaign to re-introduce selection by ability by allowing new grammar schools to open.

The Commission, led by former labour Cabinet minister Alan Milburn, said poor children fall behind pupils from better- off homes during secondary school. It said heads should ‘exercise great caution in using setting and streaming practices that can negatively impact on pupils from low income backgrounds’.

Report author Bart Shaw said: ‘Whilst we should be concerned about the high attaining pupils from low income families who get overtaken at secondary schools, it is at least as important to focus on low and middle attaining pupils from poorer backgrounds.’

Critics said abolishing streaming would damage the chances of poorer children. Chris McGovern of the Campaign for Real Education said: ‘A shift to mixed-ability teaching would be a disastrous failure.’

‘Poorer backgrounds’