Education department hosts vital conference on children in poverty

January 2025

By Sean Madden

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With UK child poverty rates rising sharply over the last few years, the Department of Education this week held its first annual conference, and discussed the impacts of growing up poor on children's learning potential.

Entitled ‘Poverty: Practice-Based Challenges to Children's Educational Experiences,’ the day gave delegates the chance for continuing professional development, and to gain an understanding of the interconnection between poverty and children’s learning capacity.

In attendance at the event were health and social care professionals, childcare practitioners and future practitioners, psychologists, and staff and students from University College Birmingham, including those from the education and nursing departments.

There was also representation from local theatre charity BigBrum, whose work is focused strongly in schools dealing with high levels of deprivation.

After guests had the opportunity to share ideas and experiences over coffee, the day got underway with a welcome from University College Birmingham lecturer Laura Holloway, before a presentation and Q&A session led by Alice Bath, Operations Manager for national charity Family Action.

The organisation supports children, young people and families through crisis while providing practical help, and Alice spoke on recent changes, complexities and challenges of working with children and families in poverty before sharing her perspective on managing multi-disciplinary teams.

After this Sammy-Jo Lowe, Associate Assistant Principal for Birmingham-based Special Educational Needs (SEND) school James Brindley Academy, led a discussion on poverty and intersectionality in a SEND context.

James Brindley is a multi-sited school that also provides hospital and home teaching, and works with some of the city’s most vulnerable young people and their families, and Sammy-Jo spoke movingly on her own experience of growing up in poverty.

With dozens of delegates taking part in the event, Laura was pleased with the way the day had progressed and felt University College Birmingham was uniquely equipped to address the issues at hand: “With our resources, location and expertise we have a great platform to reach students alongside staff and other professionals, and to harness multi-agency collaboration,” she said.

“Levels of poverty have soared, especially since the pandemic. It has a disproportionate impact on children and young people, and Birmingham has one of the UK’s highest child poverty rates.”

Before ending for lunch and the opportunity for attendees to network, students from courses including Early Childhood Studies and Primary Education Studies were given the chance to share their own perspectives.

Many students engaged with a view to enrolling in postgraduate study through University College Birmingham's Education MA, which begins in September 2025, and were eager to discuss a variety of topics.

Laura ended the morning’s proceedings with closing remarks: “This conference has really helped us all to reflect on how we can do more as a community to break the cycle of poverty, to help children achieve their educational potential,” she told guests.

“We need to keep the conversations on poverty going, in order to reach our goal of helping all children to thrive.”

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"The staff came together to find appropriate speakers and reach out to partners, and students prepared key questions with implications for their own practice. I'm so proud of how hard everyone at University College Birmingham worked to make this event happen."

Laura Holloway Lecturer in Education