Prof Tanya Ovenden-Hope - Educational Isolation & The Pretty Poverty Report

Professor Tanya Ovenden-Hope is Professor of Education and Dean of Place and Social Purpose at Plymouth Marjon University in the UK.   Tanya has spent many years exploring social inequity and educational disparity with a particular focus on the challenges for coastal, rural and small schools.  More recently she also led on the Pretty Poverty report which looks at how current government measures underestimate rural and coastal poverty in Cornwall.  We discussed both of these topics in more detail. Episode Summary: 01.30 Tanya tells us about her professional background and how she became interested in rural education and rural inequity 09.20  What are the challenges for rural, coastal, and small schools? 17.50  Education as a social determinant of health and how we speak about these topics 31.10  How did the idea for the Pretty Poverty report happen? 46.05  What were the key findings of the Pretty Poverty Report and why does the IMD not accurately capture rural and coastal deprivation?   Key Messages: In many rural and coastal areas in the UK affluence lives next to poverty, and this observation got her thinking about what the impact of this was in the educational setting. The concept of educational isolation resonated with countries around the world as a place-based problem.  It identified three compounding factors of place which were causing challenges for schools: geographical remoteness, socio-economic deprivation, and cultural isolation. If you are a child from a persistently disadvantaged background going to school in a coastal area, you will do less well than a child from a persistently disadvantaged background going to school in a rural area, who will do less well than a child from a persistently disadvantaged background who goes to school in an urban area, who will do less well than a persistently disadvantaged child who goes to school in London. Lack of Child and Adolescent Mental health services is impacting on child attendance at school.  Schools lack funding to support the needs of children with additional educational needs. Schools in coastal and rural areas receive thousands of pounds less per student which compounds the cycle of poorer outcomes. In policy we have equality, but equality does not mean equity. The cost of getting a child to school is higher for rural and coastal areas often requiring the use of private transport as public transport is not available or not reliable.  Social mobility in the South West is poor, students are not progressing to higher education.   The lack of infrastructure, large employers and higher qualification jobs is impacting on what young people aspire to or if they return to the area after their degree.  The Pretty Poverty report was part of a larger project that came out of conversations with the Cornwall Dioceses.  The IDM did not seem to represent what they were seeing in Cornwall or the rural experience.  It was part of the Cornwall Rurality Matters project.  Went to six selected areas identified using a triangulated approach which avoided the issue of spatial aggregation.   The research asked: what is it like to live in an area of Cornwall which is classified as deprived  but the IMD and explore the measure that identified that area as deprived and why other similar areas were not being classified as deprived? There is a new index of deprivation which was launched in 2025 the IOD (Index of Deprivation), this new index is not more sensitive to rurality.  Some minimal adjustments around housing and transport, but still not enough to recognize rural deprivation. The Community Needs Index - this uses "neighbourhood trust, perceived as a sign of affluence.  In the Pretty Poverty report this is represented as community resilience.  In rural areas that is not a sign of affluence but a sign of absolute need.  You rely on your family, friends and neighbours to access your basic needs due to the lack of things like public transport or digital connectivity. We value statistics more than we value qualitative and narrative data which can really show what it is like to live in a certain place. The Office of National Statistics does not report on areas with 5000 people or less, why is that and what could this mean for policy?  It makes small communities invisible in the data. There were six key findings in the Pretty Poverty report: transport dependency, housing displacement, employment precarity, healthcare withdrawal, educational isolation and community resilience. If services are not being used they get reduced, but when they are reduced they are used less, making it a vicious cycle.  Transportation is a key barrier to employment, healthcare and education.  Two thirds of rural residents live in transport deserts. Healthcare withdrawal - service centralizations are compounding access challenges.  People felt that the move to digital access was excluding them from healthcare access due to digital connectivity challenges, this was the feedback from all demographics, from young people to elderly.  This move is a very urban-centric policy.  Cornwall's connectivity is over 30% worse than other areas of England. Distances were seen as a barrier to specialist care, Cornwall has one hospital and many people travelled to Devon for care.  There is a high concentration of special needs children in small schools, 29% compared to the 3% which is the national average.  The schools are struggling as they have fewer teachers and less funding than larger or urban schools.   Strong social capacity or community resilience is a positive in rural and coastal communities, however we need to recognise that this is a response to disadvantage.  If we removed community care we might start to see the need that is underneath this.  Community assets should compliment not substitute formal services.   The Pretty Poverty Report: https://cornwallreports.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/The-Pretty-Poverty-Report.pdf    Coastal Schools and Educational Isolation: https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/research/education/university-practice-partnerships/research-in-practice/coastal-schools-and-educational-isolation   Thank you for listening to the Rural Road to Health! 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