Growing up in poverty can have a profound impact on cognitive development learning. But why? And which elements of a child’s environment have the strongest influence on their development? Much of our work tries to answer these questions. We do this by collecting our own data from children living in and around Cambridge, but also by using national level data.

UK schools are tasked with closing the so-called attainment gap – the group-level performance difference between children growing up in wealthy environments and those growing up in relative poverty. Successive policy interventions, like Free School Meals and Pupil Premium, are designed to target children from lower income homes and improve outcomes for these children.