American-style summer camps for disadvantaged youngsters may be opened next year to stop pupils from forgetting in the high-school holidays what they have learned during term
American-style summer camps for disadvantaged youngsters may be opened next year to stop pupils from forgetting in the high-school holidays what they have learned during term. The plan is one of a number being considered by the Sutton Trust to cut back on the price of the UK’s low level of social mobility.
A study released today by the education charity announces the inability to improve on the UK’s gloomy record in this area costs the country £14bn a year. The study investigates how much more cash disadvantaged youngsters would earn if their revenue were brought up to the nation’s average. One of the best techniques to raise their performance and qualifications is to introduce the summer camps which blend learning with fun, the report says. “There is real concern in England that poorer youngsters fall behind their peers in the long summer holidays,” announces the research, carried out for the Sutton Trust by economic gurus at the Boston Consulting Group. One of the explanations for this is that the pupils have less support to read books in their leisure time than youngsters from rich houses. The trust, which was set up by the millionaire humanitarian Sir Peter Lampl, is inspecting methods in which a pilot for the summer camp program may be successfully running next year. “Summer camps have been a long-time American tradition,” announces the study.
“There are an increasing number of programs that mix an educational focus with the sporting and cultural activities. A vital benefit of the US camps is they have shown serious improvements in partakers’ reading scores, helping to overcome the ‘learning loss’ that many youngsters experience in the summer and which disproportionately impacts on those from lower socio-economic groups.” Other ideas floated in the study include urging the govt to pay for “open access” independent faculties. It wants the subsequent Govt to think about extending a project launched by the trust, which saw each student at an independent girls’ college in Liverpool being admitted on merit, in any case of capability to pay. As a consequence, the trust paid the costs for a 3rd of the scholars and partial costs for another 3rd. “Under the scheme, the college achieved its best GCSE results and 95 per cent of pupils, many fit for free college meals, went to university,” announces the report.
The report recommends ministers could fund up to twelve similar faculties at a price of at least £25m, with a view to extending the scheme to a hundred faculties if it proved to achieve success.
