When Michael Lobo was appointed headteacher at St Mary's Roman Catholic primary school in Battersea, south London, last September, he thought he knew what he was dealing with. The school had been identified by Ofsted as having "serious weaknesses" and Lobo wanted to raise the profile of the school in the local area. Keen to give parents a voice in the school and in the wider community, he enlisted the help of London Citizens, a charity that works with local people to achieve social, economic and environmental justice.
A weekly meeting was established at the school, at which parents, many of whom are refugees or asylum seekers, could raise any concerns they had about school or community life, and access support from London Citizens. It soon became clear that many families were living in overcrowded accommodation. There were countless stories of families of five or more squeezed into one-bedroom flats. One mother was living in one room with her husband and two young children.
"It was a real shock," says Lobo. "The children were coming to school clean and well-dressed. We had absolutely no idea they were living in such conditions."
A meeting was arranged with Roy Evans, director of housing at Wandsworth council, who appeared sympathetic, says London Citizens. He was keen to assess the extent of the problem, so the charity commissioned Peter Ambrose, visiting professor of housing at Brighton University, to put together a survey for parents.
Overcrowding was measured by two criteria. The first was the statutory "persons per habitable room" figure (habitable room excludes kitchen and bathroom), where more than 1.5 people per habitable room constitutes overcrowding.
The second was the London borough of Wandsworth's own overcrowding standard, which stipulates, among other things, that children of the same sex need separate bedrooms where the age difference is 10 years or more, that children of the opposite sex require separate bedrooms if one is over seven years old, and that each child over 10 needs a bedroom.
Of the 62 households that submitted completed questionnaires, the rate of overcrowding was 52% by national standards and 81% by Wandsworth council's own stringent standards.
The figures came as little surprise for Lobo. "We were seeing increasing numbers of students needing support with emotional and behavioural issues. If children are living in cramped conditions, it is easy to see why that might happen."
Ambrose agrees: "Unfortunately, this isn't an unusual situation. It's happening in cities across the UK. The government is pouring millions of pounds into education without considering that many children don't have the right infrastructure in which to operate."
As well as lack of space to study at home, overcrowding effects children's educational, social and emotional development: interrupted sleep, not being able to invite other children back to play, and household tensions, for example.
According to the housing charity Shelter, about one in 10 under-16s in England - almost a million - are living in overcrowded housing, 300,000 of whom are in London.
The link between poor housing and low educational achievement is well-documented. According to a 2006 Shelter study, children living in bad housing are twice as likely to be excluded from school, and, in a single year, more than 57,000 children living in bad housing in Britain are excluded from school. Just 53% of children living in bad housing attain five or more A* to C grade GCSEs, compared with 71% of children not living in bad housing.
Unchenna Ewulum has two children at St Mary's. He lives in a one-bedroom flat with his wife and four children, aged from 12 months to 12 years. Although the family share a bedroom (three of the children sleep on the floor), breaching Wandsworth and national housing regulations, he claims Wandsworth says he is not eligible for council accommodation.
"My eldest son can't read or study. He can't use the computer because the younger ones are always bothering him," he says. "My daughter, who is eight, loves drawing and painting, but there is no room for her to do this. There is no outside space for the children to play. Some weekends we are in the flat, all cramped together, from morning to night. I don't think the children are achieving their full potential."
Until a few months ago, another Wandsworth resident, Miranda King (not her real name), was living in a two-bedroom flat with her partner and five children. "I had two sets of bunkbeds in the boys' room and two of them shared a bed. With five boys, there was a lot of testosterone flying about. There was nowhere for them to play outside, so there were constant arguments."
King joined the council waiting list for bigger housing back in 1994, when she had three children. She spent five years on the waiting list for a three-bedroom house, but when her fourth child was born, she slid down to the bottom of the list for four-bedroom houses. Nine years on, after the birth of her fifth child, she was still waiting.
Paradoxically, domestic violence saved her. When her partner became violent towards her, she was rehoused in temporary accommodation with her children. "When I was assaulted by my former partner, the police were called to the flat. They couldn't believe the squalor we were living in. The walls were damp and we had rats. They put pressure on the council to get us rehoused. A few months later, we finally got the four-bedroom house we need."
The impact on her children has been incredible, says King. "My youngest son had delayed speech. He hardly spoke. Since we moved here, he's started singing. My [other son's] reading age has shot up a couple of years. The children have their own space to work and I've got the space to read with the younger children, which has definitely helped their progress."
And finally, her children can have friends home to play. "You feel ashamed of the way you live," says King. "You shut yourself away." She hopes it isn't too late for her eldest child, now 17, whose education, she believes, was adversely affected by cramped living conditions.
At St Mary's, Lobo is looking at how the school could run homework clubs for all students, free of charge.
For London Citizens, the work goes on. Its housing survey is being rolled out to schools in other London boroughs, and it would like to work alongside parents, the community and Wandsworth on developing temporary measures that could be put in place to ease the effects of overcrowding. Fold-away desks and retractable partition walls are some of the ideas that have been successfully piloted in other London boroughs with similar problems.
Wandsworth's director of housing, Roy Evans, says: "I will be responding to the findings of the report in due course. I'm happy to discuss the issues raised and try to help. As the survey was anonymised, we'd need to establish whether the families who took part definitely live in Wandsworth, as St Mary's draws from a number of boroughs. London Citizens has carried out some useful work here, but this is just one of 50 primary schools in Wandsworth, and we've got thousands of people on various waiting lists."
Peace and quiet
Earlier this month, London Citizens sent Evans a DVD, which features St Mary's children singing carols and outlining three wishes: the setting up of a team who will visit their homes and see how they can be fixed; the establishment of a citizens' panel, including council staff and community members; and work with families to make sure "we're not squashed any more".
The DVD, featuring children talking about the cold, damp conditions they live in, melts the heart. Nevertheless, the children of St Mary's remain cheerful: "I would just like some peace and quiet, somewhere to do my homework," says Argjenta, in year 4, who lives in a one-bedroom flat with her parents and brother and sister. "I'd also like a bedroom of my own. Then I wouldn't have to listen to my dad's snoring."