Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.

What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC

Sounds.

Mrs Murphy has just finished marking this term's math test. Sitting at her desk at the front of the

empty classroom, she scans the list of names and grades and notices not for the first time a

pattern emerging in the scores.

The pupils at the top of the list with the highest marks

are almost all from what she thinks of as nice homes,

whether are books and parents with the time to read with them.

They're the children who are less likely to get in trouble, less likely to make bad decisions.

She wishes she could say the same for those at the bottom of the list, but most of the lowest

scores come from the children who live in the poorest part of town. Some of them, she knows,

have difficult home lives.

Maybe that's why. she knows how difficult home lives.

Maybe that's why they do badly, she thinks.

Or maybe it's genetics.

Or maybe, a growing number of scientists are saying saying there's something else going on.

Simply being poor could be affecting the pupils' brains.

...