Tackling Poverty and Disadvantage in Schools

Written by two people who walk the walk every day, this book pulls together real expertise from across the system to help us truly understand poverty and its effects, but most importantly offer us a host of practical ways schools can make things better. This is a book every teacher and leader should read. – Jonny Uttley * CEO, The Education Alliance Multi-Academy Trust, Visiting Fellow at The Centre for Young Lives, Co-author of Putting Staff First: A Blueprint to Revitalise Our Schools *
The authors’ relentless determination to drive opportunities for all children shine through in this book, which is both inspiring and of huge practical value. This is an essential read. – Baroness Longfield * Executive Chair and Founder, Centre for Young Lives *
It strikes a rare balancing act between being academic, accessible and actionable at the same time. The work the authors do, and the exemplars from schools and trusts, are really strong and shine through, so that this book proves useful to busy school leaders working hard to make a difference. * Alex Quigley, education consultant and author *
Every page reaffirms my belief that we must close any gaps early, because those gaps widen quickly and affect children’s life chances in profound ways. – @Hellins_headteacher

This extremely knowledgeable and very readable book provides a ‘can’ do approach with powerful examples of the ways in which schools can tackle the impact of poverty that can create disadvantage for so many children. Harris and Morley draw on their own extensive experience, and that of chapter authors, to provide insight into the challenges that face schools and strategies found to be successful.

This book is an essential read for all education professionals in schools, universities and the wider education community. It provides guidance for schools to aid reflection on issues within their own context and suggests a wealth of evidence-informed strategies for developing whole-school culture and professional learning. We have been trying to ‘close the gap’ for years, with mixed success. Harris and Morley’s valuable contribution to fostering equity provides readers with an abundance of ideas for inspiring practice to increase opportunities for all our children.

Sean Harris is the Trust Improvement and Research Lead for Tees Valley Education Trust. He is also the research lead and advocate for EdNorth, a doctoral researcher in Education at Teesside University and on the board of the North Yorkshire Business and Education Partnership. Sean writes regularly for SchoolsWeek, SecEd, Headteacher Update and TES.

Katrina Morley is the CEO of Tees Valley Education Multi-Academy Trust. She has over 20 years of experience in the education sector in a range of leadership roles in a variety of establishments, all of which were graded by Ofsted as ‘Outstanding’ or ‘Good with Outstanding Features’. Katrina is also a non-executive director for Northern Power of Women, the Vice Chair of the SEND and AP group for Schools North East and a board member of SSAT National Primary Board.

Tees Valley Education’s PLACE work was a Silver Winner in the Pearson National Teaching Awards 2026, in the category of School or College Partnership of the Year.

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