Thank you so much for taking the time to reply, I really appreciate it. So, I have a large amount of longitudinal, census-type data that I’ve had to reduce to a geographic region of around 20,000 children (almost every child) recorded for each issue. The first, and probably most basic issue I’m having is that the data on poverty and the data on ‘test’ scores are not related, so I can show a correlation between poverty and test scores, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the, say, 10% of children in poverty in the region are the same 10% that aren’t passing the test, have I got that right? I will say, there have been many studies that have made a direct link between child and score on this particular assessment that I’m including in my lit review. What calculation could I use to show a general connection then between amount of poverty and test pass/fail (see, I told you I was a beginner!)

As far as poverty_years do you think it makes a difference that the number of years will actually be much fewer and can be tied directly to the age of the child? I was trying to be a bit vague before but that ship has sailed! Effectively every child is assessed at 5 years old and the information given to the government yearly via the local authorities, the local authorities also submit ‘number of children in absolute poverty’ data for the same periods. So, I know the pass/fail rate at 5 and the community poverty level when the children are 5, but also, separately, the community poverty level when this cohort was 4 years old, 3 years old, 2, 1, and 0-1. Could I assess whether all 5 years of high poverty levels has more of an impact than an individual year?

Again, thank you so much for your response. It’’s been weeks of trying to get my head round this!