Bottom of the Class: Children's Stories of Low Attainment in Primary School

by Laura Quick

Overview

This book offers a much-needed look at the impact of our attainment-driven education system on those children considered ‘low attainers’. It reveals how difficult they find it to feel good about themselves, their capacity to learn and their futures, as well as shedding light on the role schools are playing in maintaining inequality and the illusion of meritocracy.

At the heart of Bottom of the Class are the engaging and thought-provoking stories of four children whom the author followed through three years of primary school. Concerned with friendships, getting ‘told off’ and struggling with schoolwork, they are in some ways very ordinary. Yet, caught between competing messages about who they ‘ought’ to be and their fears of failure, they are also extraordinary, showing impressive courage, creativity and integrity in the way they navigate their paths through school.

By bringing the voices of ‘low attainers’ into the centre of the debate around low attainment, this crucially important book is a must-read for anyone interested in educational inequality and school experience within education studies, policy studies, the sociology of education, initial teacher training and educational leadership.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032826288
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/27/2025
Series:	Foundations and Futures of Education
Pages:	194
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Laura Quick is an honorary research fellow at University College London and lecturer in Education at the University of Roehampton, UK. Previously a primary and SEND teacher, her research explores the relationship between schools, inequalities and social justice.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Diane Reay

1. Setting the scene

2. Researching children’s experiences

3. Sam: ‘A jigsaw with pieces missing’

4. Ellie: ‘It doesn’t matter about your work, it just matters about people doing good’

5. Clara: ‘Always convince yourself that you’re great’

6. Michael: ‘In the middle, that’s what I’m like’

7. Navigating school as a ‘low attainer’

Editorial Reviews

‘Laura Quick has written a vitally important book – a humane and wise exploration of the challenges faced by children who struggle in school and their brave and creative responses. A must read for everyone engaged with and interested in our education system and our children's wellbeing.’

Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson, co-authors of The Spirit Level

‘This book brings to life the human impact of a school system obsessed with attainment through the stories of four children classed as ‘low attaining’ in primary school. Their carefully researched experiences are deftly analysed to reveal the emotional effects of being both stigmatised for low attainment and simultaneously encouraged to be positive about school. Quick has produced a book which vividly details the devastating human cost of a pressurised education system, and gives us new ways to think about how schools could operate.’

Alice Bradbury, Professor of Sociology of Education, University College London, UK

‘At the heart of this vivid book are the experiences of four children –both ordinary and extraordinary, as Laura Quick notes – who struggle with their schoolwork. Drawing on Foucault’s work, Laura challenges our accepted notions of assessment, ability, merit, resilience, and ‘happiness’. She highlights the degree of emotional labour the children are required to do on themselves to escape the humiliation of failure, and to achieve some dignity and ease in a system that is labelling them as inadequate. This excellent study should be read by teachers, parents, policy makers and others interested in understanding – and challenging – how school experiences affect and shape children, and how they respond.’

Carol Vincent, Professor and Associate Research Director for Education and Skills at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR)

‘In this powerful book, Laura Quick opens out to the reader stories of four children’s experiences of our current high-pressured attainment-driven system, a system underscored by a deterministic and destructive belief in each individual’s fixed-ability and hence position in society. Labelled as ‘low-attainers’, the reader is pulled into these children’s worlds as they negotiate and make sense of what appear to be established boundaries, to understand their position and to maintain their identity either as, or running counter to, that imposed on them. Their narratives richly illustrate how our current education system allows some children to construct themselves as permanent school failures by the age of 11 and serves as an important outlet for the all too often unheard voices of children who, for whatever reason, struggle to meet the current determinants of educational success.’

Rachel Marks, Associate Professor of Mathematics Education, University College London, UK

From the Publisher