Lloyd Lofthouse

To discover the world’s best teachers we have to look at children who live in poverty. Teachers who successfully teach as many of these children as possible are the world’s best teachers.

TheUS National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health says: “It is well documented that poverty decreases a child’s readiness for school through aspects of health, home life, schooling and neighbourhoods. Six poverty-related factors are known to impact child development in general and school readiness in particular. They are:

• The incidence of poverty
• The depth of poverty
• The duration of poverty
• The timing of poverty (eg, age of child)
• Community characteristics (eg, concentration of poverty and crime in neighborhood, and school characteristics)
• and the impact poverty has on the child’s social network (parents, relatives and neighbors).

“A child’s home has a particularly strong impact on school readiness. Children from low-income families often do not receive the stimulation…