This article explores poverty from the perspective of the intergenerational transmission. That is, it suggests that communities, and specifically a post-industrial community in South Wales, had developed coping strategies to manage the precarious character of employment associated with the mining and steel industries. These post-industrial communities are now marked by poverty. Part of the way schools are currently adapting to changes in the economic base is to offer more vocationally oriented courses especially in the upper school. This article asks whether this kind of provision is enough for young people in post-industrial communities. To understand achievement in education, it is becoming increasingly important to recognise the cultural values that young people inherit from the industrial past and how these still act as survival strategies today.