Wealth Gap in Learning, by age 3

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A research study on wealth gap in learning, quoted from BBC news 11 July 2007.  Any implications on some schools hand-picking students from a select group?

By the age of three, children from disadvantaged homes are up to a year behind in their learning than those from more privileged backgrounds.

Graduates' children were seen to be 12 months ahead of those of the least well educated in tests on their grasp of letters, numbers, colours and shapes.

And disadvantaged children's vocabulary skills were 10 months behind their more advantaged peers, the study added.

The Institute of Education research was based on a survey of 12,000 children.

In the longitudinal study of children born in 2000 to 2002, girls were educationally three months ahead of boys on average.

The Millennium Cohort Study also found large differences between children living in families above and below the poverty line.

The poorest children were 10 months behind their wealthier peers in tests of their grasp of shapes, numbers, letters and colours known as "school readiness" tests.

And they were five months behind their wealthier peers in vocabulary tests.

One of the researchers, Professor Heather Joshi, said: "The advantaged children tended to be way ahead of the average and the disadvantaged children were lagging behind.

"If you look at the front-runners and the runner ups - there's almost a year's worth of differences."

These results will not be a surprise to education experts or government policy advisers who have long known that parents' educational achievement and family income are indicators of a child's educational success.

But the research shows the scale of the differences in the educational achievement of different social groups at this early age.

A series of government initiatives, including providing free part-time nursery education to three and four-year-olds and efforts to get more parents reading with their children, aim to close the attainment gap between the rich and poor.

Schools minister Jim Knight said: "Closing attainment gaps between different groups of children is a massive priority for us.

"We are working hard to provide a range of support - such as catch up lessons, one-to-one tuition and wraparound support for children and their families.

"We provide a wide range of funding and support to help schools make sure that no child is left behind at any stage, whatever their background, gender or ability."