Abstract_1

Different social, economic and educational factors help explain why students leave school early, and entail different school-based and non-school based solutions. As a key responsible party, schools must adapt and establish support mechanisms that protect, monitor and retain at-risk pupils in the education system. School systems need to adapt to the needs of students and develop supporting strategies to ensure that instruction and content are relevant and useful to all children. Many studies have shown how schools tend to reproduce existing social hierarchies (Maslow 1943, 1968, 1970; Bowles and Gintis 1976; Bourdieu 1970; DOE 2001; and Naicker 2005).  For schools to meaningfully contribute to the lives of children, they need to rupture the status quo. By implementing flexible and accommodating strategies that meet the needs of diverse learners, schools can increase opportunities for social and spatial mobility. This is not a welfarist approach to poverty but rather a serious concern about the pedagogical implications of poverty. Teachers who are sympathetic towards learners and create welcoming and supporting environments help break the intergenerational transmission of poverty. Learning experiences that involve stimulation, enrichment and play can be used to compensate for previous deprivation, especially in the areas of reading, mathematics, spatial development and sensory understandings.