The start of the new academic year is usually a time of hope and optimism for teachers, as they look forward to the challenges of the term ahead.
This year, however, optimism is in short supply, replaced by uncertainty and trepidation over the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
It is feared that soaring food and energy bills could push many thousands of families into poverty this winter, and teachers know they will see the consequences of this in the classroom.
We know poverty and deprivation have a huge impact on educational outcomes, with pupils from poorer backgrounds consistently having lower exam results than their more well-off peers.
A report from the Education Policy Institute recently revealed that in Wales, the disadvantage gap in GCSE results between pupils from rich and poor families was already equivalent to 22-23 months of educational progress in 2019.
The persistent disadvantage gap was about 29 months of educational progress in 2019, which was unchanged from the level in 2011.
The Covid-19 pandemic is certain to have had an impact on both of those statistics.
This winter, teachers fear they will see many more pupils pushed into poverty, which will result in them coming to school hungry, lacking the equipment they need for lessons and being unable to afford new uniforms and kit.
This can lead to a lack of energy and concentration and poorer behaviour in the classroom, all of which can have long-term effects on pupils’ learning and development.
Teachers also fear that they will be pressured to try to mitigate the impact of this poverty on their pupils’ learning.
After all, there has long been an expectation from educational policymakers that schools should shoulder most of the burden of closing the disadvantage gap.
This summer, Wales’ education minister, Jeremy Miles, said that “radical action” was needed to help close the disadvantage gap, and he outlined a series of measures aimed at tackling the impact of poverty on attainment.
We know that a focus on teacher quality is crucial to closing the gap, and some of the measures acknowledge that, such as exploring ways to incentivise teachers to teach in the most disadvantaged areas, and peer-to-peer support for senior leaders.
There’s also plenty of research that shows how teachers can make a difference in the classroom, through providing high quality instruction, or increased instructional time, for example.
But the reality is that schools and teachers can only do so much – while they can contribute to narrowing the gap, they are not the solution to the problem and they can’t be expected to fix society’s ills alone.
The Welsh Government must use the levers it has to ease the situation this winter as well as having a wider and longer-term policy focus on child poverty involving multiple parties.
Our fear is that teachers will be put under even more pressure this winter to help solve a problem that is out of their control, when they are already stretched and might be struggling financially themselves.
We sincerely hope that the focus on pupil disadvantage doesn’t further disadvantage our schools and teachers.