Evidence of barriers faced by deprived children at school 'gobsmacking', claims Frank Field

Labour MP Field, who chairs the government’s Review on Poverty and Life Chances, is to hand a detailed interim report to David Cameron showing the barriers children from deprived backgrounds face in education.

In a speech at an Institute of Fiscal Studies conference on child poverty this week, Field said: "The gobsmacking findings were that, as children turned up for their first day at school, they possessed a wide range of abilities and that children from families on the lowest incomes were more likely to be towards the bottom end of the range of these abilities. And there they remained when a second set of tests was taken at 10 years of age."

He added that "even worse" was that high-performing children from deprived backgrounds "lost ground" on those from richer backgrounds between the ages of five and 10.

He declined to reveal details of the recommendations he will make to the Prime Minister but he suggests these will focus on how children can be better supported during their first five years. "Interventions" during school were shown to be less effective in reducing inequality.

"We are considering whether it is possible to marshal a range of intelligent interventions that radically alter what would otherwise be the current fate of poorer children," he added.