In modern Britain, why are children ‘born at a disadvantage’?

As Joseph Timan reports for the Manchester Evening News, across Manchester, more than 3m days of face-to-face schooling were missed due to persistently high Covid infection rates and longer-lasting restrictions. This resulted in children here falling further behind those in the rest of the country. 

The report also says that many children in the North struggle to learn to read at an 'acceptable’ rate. In Manchester, standards in reading have slipped and the difference compared to national data has more than doubled since 2019. 

Last year, the first formal assessments of primary school pupils revealed a 'concerning’ decline in performance, particularly among the youngest children. Across the North - where there was an additional 41 days of lockdown on average - wages fell, unemployment rose and mental health worsened, according to the public health research institutes behind the new report. 

They argue Northern schools already support disproportionate numbers of children in poverty who suffer higher rates of physical and mental health problems. Covid exacerbated this and there is currently insufficient funding for those hit hardest by the pandemic and its aftermath, the report claims. 

According to the report, Northern schools support disproportionate numbers of children in poverty, children with poor levels of development on entering school, vulnerable children, children who have suffered from neglect and abuse, and children in local authority care. Children in the North of England are also more likely to be born into unhealthy environments, the report states. 

In 2022, Wood Street Mission distributed over 20,500 books to disadvantaged young people across Manchester and thanks to support from the public, it’s brilliant that each child gets to take home books to keep. Through such acts of kindness, you are helping to overcome barriers that children in low-income families face.