ABSTRACT
Social class remains the strongest predictor of educational achievement in the UK, where the social class gap for educational achievement is one of the most significant in the developed world.
(Perry and Francis 2010, p. 2)
If you want to know how well a child will do at school, ask how much money its parents have.The fact remains that, after more than 50 years of the Welfare State and several decades of comprehensive education, family income and wealth is the single best predictor of success in the school system. Of course some children from well-off homes don’t do well at school and some children from poor backgrounds succeed, but the overall pattern is clear: social class, defined in terms of socio-economic status, correlates closely with attainment at school.
