'Incredible' contrast between university and school outcomes

Oxford is known for its university, but a charity CEO has said poverty is affecting the performance of primary school children in the county

It is "incredible" that a third of Oxfordshire's children are not meeting basic standards of education despite the success of the county's universities, the chief executive of a charity has said.

Oxfordshire Community Foundation released a report compiling data on a number of social issues in the county.

It found one in nine children were living in poverty, something its chief executive, Zoe Sprigings, said was closely linked to education outcomes.

Oxfordshire County Council and the Department for Education (DfE) said they were working to improve school performance and provide financial support to help families cope with the cost of living crisis.

According to the report 35% of primary school children in the county do not meet the expected standard of reading, writing and maths.

Ms Sprigings said it painted a "different picture" to what people normally think of when they think of the area.

"Globally, when people hear Oxford they think: top level education and incredible opportunities and research - and it's true," she said.

But she said "behind the headline", thousands children in the county are living in poverty - something that has a "huge impact" on their educational outcomes.

"Families are in poverty and [are] not able to give their kids their basics, and what happens then if you haven't got the basics - you're feeling hungry when you're studying at school or you can't afford to take the bus to get to education," she said.

"It then just starts having these knock on effects for the rest of your life."

She said leaving school with few qualifications "is going to trap you in the lowest paid jobs".

"Then if you're facing really high rent as well as energy and food, you can see how that just files into problems like homelessness," she said.

Oxfordshire County Council said it offered a family information service to help advise parents concerned about rising costs.

It also launched the Oxfordshire Resident Support Scheme in June, meaning some residents experiencing hardship might be eligible for additional help.

A DfE spokesperson said the government was "relentlessly focussed on closing the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers".

"We are also continuing to drive up standards, with England recently ranked 11th in the world for maths up from 27th in 2009, and named ‘best in the West’ for primary reading out of a comparable 43 countries," they added.