Education is a key driver of resilience against the backdrop of increasing uncertainty provoked by economic inequalities and enduring forms of social injustice. Education can offer hope, and a means to a prosperous future. Yet for many children living in poverty, school is a site in which economic inequalities are reproduced and children experience further exclusion and stigma as a result. Some 22.4% of European households with dependent children were at risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2022 (Eurostat 2023).  In the UK, 29% of children (nine in every class of 30) are living in poverty (CPAG, 2023).  Poverty has been exacerbated by multiple crises including the Covid-19 pandemic, creating inequalities in educational attainment and uncertain futures for families (JRF, 2023).   

The Cost of the School Day project (CoSD), developed by two charities, the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) and Children North East (CNE), aimed to understand the barriers and challenges faced by poor children during the school day and to use this evidence to help schools reduce costs and remove stigmatising practices to bring about a fair education for children living in poverty. The CoSD team developed partnerships with schools, local and national governments, and a range of organisations, bodies and charities in order to shape policy and practice.  

Starting with the assumption that all activity is ‘social/collective’ (Daniels, 2004, p.123) and governed by rules and divisions of labour (Engeström and Sannino, 2010, p. 6); this paper will analyse how the partnerships within the CoSD project worked (affordances and ‘contradictions’) and examine the relational aspects in engaging across the partnership (Rickinson and Edwards, 2021) and how this ultimately led to change, improving the lives of children, young people and their families and enabling them to thrive and succeed.   

The Cost of the School Day project (CoSD) is led by Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), a UK based charity that campaigns to end child poverty in the UK. Most education in the UK is free of charge, but there are costs incurred in respect of meals, uniforms, travel and resources that can negatively impact upon the experience of education for children and young people.  The project is based on Children North East’s ‘Poverty Proofing’ model, which has been shown to be effective in surfacing stigmatising practices which negatively impact children living in poverty and achieving change in schools (Mazzoli Smith & Todd, 2016; Mazzoli Smith & Todd, 2019). 

The CoSD team developed partnerships with schools, local and national governments, and a range of organisations, bodies and charities in order to shape policy and practice. For the purpose of this paper, we will be focussing on the partnership between the schools taking part and the Child Poverty Action Group. Cultural Historical Activity Theory (Engestrom) and the later work of Rickinson and Edwards on relational agency and the ‘relational features of evidence use’ (2021) were chosen as the theoretical approaches enabling us to understand the affordances that led to success as well as the challenges faced. 

The project team worked intensively with schools across three countries: England, Scotland and Wales. Within those countries, five geographical areas were chosen based on a range of criteria including: the local incidence of high child poverty; the potential for influence on local government; the spread of schools in geographically different locations (e.g. urban and rural); and in some cases, areas where some strategic partnerships were already in place. 55 schools took part. And the research team sought to understand how the processes adopted, and relationships/networks developed by the CoSD leads and practitioners impacted the CoSD programme. The research methodology was adapted in light of the Covid-19 pandemic and accompanying restrictions and included desk-based work; online interviewing; observation of the CoSD audits (online and in-person); and, as soon as was possible, in-person visits to case study schools to interview members of the school community e.g. pupils, staff (teaching and non-teaching), parents and governors. The research team sought and obtained ethical approval through their institution, Newcastle University, ethical review process. Researchers adopted the British Educational Research Association (BERA, 2018) ethical principles and acted reflexively to consider the ethical implications of their actions. Participants gave informed consent and researchers ensured that both adult and child participants were assured that their participation was entirely voluntarily and that if they did not wish to participate there would be no adverse consequences. Participants were given multiple opportunities to ask questions about the research and contact details both in school and with the research team if they had any further queries or if they changed their mind about participation. Data were analysed both inductively, in identifying codes, searching for themes and reviewing (Braun and Clarke, 2006), and secondly deductively in relation to Cultural Historical Activity Theory (Engeström and Sannino, 2010 and Daniels, 2004) and the later work of Edwards on ‘relational agency’ (2006).

Education policy in the UK is devolved to each country, and as a result the contexts, histories and starting points in each were very different for the CoSD national leads and practitioners in terms of working with schools and this impacted on how the project unfolded. The CoSD project could not have happened as it did without the involvement of multiple partners. These partnerships were easier to develop where existing relationships existed, and where CPAG had established a good reputation. Finding shared agendas and values helped people to work together, as did demonstrating a good understanding of the local context in which the project took place. This led to credibility and trust being developed, where information could be shared, and whereby partners could broker relationships with schools and facilitate the sharing of good practice. Where partnerships were not already existing, extra time was needed to establish the project. In terms of the partnership between the schools and the CoSD teams, trust was built through the positioning of the CoSD team as specialists in the field of child poverty, but was also established through the development of relations prior to an audit taking place, the processes in place to ensure that an audit ran smoothly and did not impact on the workload of staff and crucially in the way that the findings were presented to the school. From the practitioners’ perspectives they all commented that being physically present in school enabled them to build better relationships with the pupils and staff. The shared desire to improve the lives of families experiencing poverty was an important foundation for the audit process and a key feature of the partnership working. Nevertheless, funding constraints and historical ways of working sometimes got in the way of enacting significant change.

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