LBP0044

Written evidence submitted by the Department for Education

ESC inquiry: left behind white pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds

Department for Education response

Executive summary

The Government’s mission over the last decade, under successive Prime Ministers and Secretaries of State for Education, has been to break the correlation between parental wealth and pupil achievement at school through raising standards for all pupils. Six months after the 2010 General Election, we published our Schools White Paper, The Importance of Teaching. The paper emphasised the crucial role that schools can play in raising pupil attainment, particularly for those from poorer families. A decade on, we have taken huge strides forward.

Central to raising standards has been ensuring that all children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds[1], have access to what Matthew Arnold called the ‘best that has been thought and said’, as part of their cultural inheritance. This has meant overhauling the so-called skills- or competence-based National Curriculum, replacing it with one that makes sure children are taught the essential building blocks of knowledge. We have introduced the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) performance measure, incentivising schools to teach a broad and balanced academic curriculum, and have replaced public examinations that were devalued by grade inflation and no longer had public confidence.

We have reformed the way in which children are taught to read, aligning it with the evidence through embedding systematic synthetic phonics into the Key Stage 1 (KS1) curriculum. We have created a network of English Hubs, which are supporting 3,000 schools to improve their teaching of reading to the most disadvantaged pupils in Reception and Year 1. We have also reformed primary assessment, reforming national tests for 11-year-olds, as well as the Phonics Screening Check to confirm whether pupils have learned phonics decoding to the expected standard. The renewed Ofsted framework for primary schools has a stronger focus on the teaching of reading, making it a core part of all inspections.

The mathematics curriculum has been benchmarked against the highest performing jurisdictions in the world, with greater focus on written methods of arithmetic in primary, and on algebra, geometry, probability, and applications such as statistics in secondary. Both KS1 and KS2 mathematics assessments have been changed to reflect the more rigorous content of the National Curriculum, and the statutory Multiplication Tables Check for Year 4 pupils will ensure that pupils have mastered their times tables. A larger and more challenging mathematics GCSE has been introduced. We have also overseen a dramatic improvement in the teaching of mathematics, drawing on the success of the mastery teaching approach used in East Asian jurisdictions, through the Teaching for Mastery programme, which is funded to reach 11,000 primary and secondary schools.

We have reformed school accountability to move away from threshold measures (e.g. 5A*-C inc English and maths) and instead focus on the progress that pupils make, compared to other pupils nationally with similar starting points. As an example, the new ‘Progress 8’ measure is designed to reward secondary schools for the progress made by all pupils across the ability range. It reduces incentives to focus on pupils close to a particular grade threshold as every increase in every grade a pupil achieves attracts additional points in Progress 8. It encourages schools to focus on lower-attaining pupils, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds, as much as higher-attaining pupils, and means that high-performing schools with a challenging intake can demonstrate that their pupils are making positive progress.

We have made teaching a respected and attractive profession, recruiting over 12,000 additional teachers into our schools since 2010. We have improved the training and development of our teachers so that more children are taught by great teachers. We have revised the Initial Teacher Training (ITT) Core Content Framework and, through the implementation of the Early Career Framework, will support teachers in the first years of their career with a high quality, two-year induction into the profession. These programmes are based on the very best evidence of what works, giving teachers the knowledge and skills they need to support pupil progress. We have transformed teacher training, introducing School Direct to enable effective schools to recruit and deliver training more easily, and have accredited over 100 schools or multi-academy trusts (MATs) as new providers of ITT. We have also significantly expanded the prestigious Teach First programme, meaning more disadvantaged pupils are being taught by great teachers.

Our offer for school leaders has been improved, including through the development of improved National Professional Qualifications (NPQs), which will provide training and development for experienced teachers and school leaders. Over 4,000 middle and senior leaders have now completed our High Potential programmes and we have provided over £30 million in scholarship funding to pay for teachers and leaders in areas of greatest need to undertake these qualifications for free.

We have reformed school inspections to ensure that schools are held accountable for achieving the higher standards that we expect for all pupils, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds. The removal of the Satisfactory Ofsted inspection grade, and its replacement with Requires Improvement, sent an important message to schools that ‘satisfactory’ was no longer good enough. Ofsted’s new inspection framework places knowledge at its centre and insists that every pupil should be equipped with the knowledge they need to participate, contribute and succeed in life. The framework is built around the insight that knowledge can only be achieved through an effective curriculum, which is carefully conceived, sequenced and implemented.

We have granted greater powers to head teachers to deal with disruptive behaviour in their schools, which stops children, including the most disadvantaged, from learning. Tom Bennett’s independent review of school behaviour highlighted strategies that school leaders should use to design, build and maintain a school culture that prevents classroom disruption and maintains good discipline. We are investing £10 million in Behaviour Hubs, which will allow schools with exemplary behaviour cultures to work in partnership with others that want to improve and create environments where all pupils, including disadvantaged children, are able to succeed

The National Funding Formula (NFF) has replaced the postcode lottery of the past, to ensure that funding is distributed on the basis of schools’ and pupils’ characteristics, not accidents of history or location. The Pupil Premium was introduced in 2011 to provide schools with additional funding that reflects the socio-economic circumstances of individual pupils, accompanied by accountability measures that help ensure schools use the funding to benefit this target group. Around 27% of all pupils now attract Pupil Premium funding, and the total investment from April 2011 to March 2020 stands at more than £18 billion.

We have provided more autonomy to school leaders to pursue evidence-informed approaches to teaching. Since 2010, the number of academies has grown from 200 to over 9,000, with four out of ten schools now part of an academy trust. At its best, the academies programme produces a more dynamic and responsive education system by allowing school leaders to make decisions based on local need and the interests of their pupils, including disadvantaged pupils. As part of the broader academies programme, the Free Schools programme was designed to bring innovation to the system and to drive wider improvements. Since 2010, we have opened over 500 new Free Schools (excluding studio schools and university technical colleges) across the country, which will provide over 270,000 places when at full capacity, with many focusing on the needs of disadvantaged areas.

We have started to see the impact of these reforms. The success of the approach taken by the government has contributed to the proportion of schools rated Good or Outstanding rising to 86% from 68% in 2010. This means tens of thousands more children are receiving the education they deserve, and that most disadvantaged pupils now attend Good or Outstanding schools, giving them better prospects for a successful adult life. Since 2011, the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and others has narrowed by 13% (primary) and 9% (secondary).

There is, however, still a great deal to be done, and we are not complacent. That the attainment gap widened slightly within the last year (0.5% in primary and 0.4% in secondary) demonstrates the importance of embedding our reforms further, and that is before we take into account the further challenges posed by covid-19. As the Education Select Committee’s inquiry sets out, white pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds continue to lag behind. There are many reasons for this, and in many ways, it is a complex area. At the heart of the issue, however, is a simple truth: we know a great education is fundamental to improving pupil outcomes, yet not every child – especially those from disadvantaged background – has access to one.

There are some who would suggest that the solution is to change tack and do something different for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, such as lowering our expectations on studying the core academic subjects or changing the curriculum to make it more ‘relevant’. The Government rejects this wholeheartedly. A great education for wealthier pupils is a great education for disadvantaged pupils, of all races and ethnicities. Our reforms since 2010 have demonstrated that it is possible to achieve the highest standards for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. Schools such as Dixons Trinity Academy in Bradford, Michaela Community School in Brent, and Harris Academy Bermondsey are achieving remarkable results with high proportions of disadvantaged pupils, due to their focus on high standards of behaviour, a knowledge-rich curriculum, and excellent support and development for teachers. We must double down and continue to push for equal access to an education of the highest standard for all pupils.

The Government has recently launched a Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, which will review inequality in the UK, focusing on areas including poverty, education, employment, health and the criminal justice system. The Commission will look at outcomes for the whole population and aim to submit its findings to the Prime Minister by the end of the year. We will carefully review the findings of this Commission to make sure we continue to tackle the injustice of educational inequality.

Where we started from – the context for our reforms

A great education can change lives. As Professor Rebecca Allen and Dr Sam Sims say in their book The Teacher Gap:

“Education is unique among the public services in its ability to propel people forward. Health care, social care and policing are, of course, vital. But they focus on protecting people from risk or putting then back on their feet after misfortune…Only education gives us the power to go further.”[2]

It is this belief in the liberating power of education that has driven the government’s reforms over the past decade, under successive Prime Ministers and Education Secretaries. Every child deserves to be able to fulfil their potential regardless of where they were born or how much their parents earn, and raising school standards is at the heart of our plan to level up across the country.

When we entered office in 2010, however, the correlation between parental wealth and pupil achievement was stubbornly entrenched. Children from poorer homes who were already behind in their development when they started school were falling further behind their wealthier peers. Rather than being engines of social mobility, our school system perpetuated inequality.

The causes of this were multifaceted. This Government believes that the training of teachers in universities was insufficiently focused on evidence-informed approaches, led by effective school practitioners. It believes that the National Curriculum needed to be more focused on the teaching of powerful knowledge and rigorous subject content. Approaches to behaviour needed to do more to support head teachers to implement clear systems for managing poor behaviour.

Underpinning all of this was a fatalistic assumption by some in the sector that the gap between rich and poor was inevitable – the soft bigotry of low expectations – which was writing off people’s lives, rather than striving to give them the education needed to influence their own destinies.

The evidence underlines the scale of the challenge we were facing.

• In 2010, 44% of primary pupils eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) did not achieve a level 4 (the expected level) in both mathematics and English at KS2. This compares to 26% of all pupils who did not achieve this level.[3]
• In 2010, 69% of FSM eligible pupils did not achieve five GCSEs (including mathematics and English) at grade A*-C, compared to 45% of all pupils.[4]
• Too few pupils were taking GCSEs in the core academic subjects, with many being entered for low value vocational qualifications, rather than academic or vocational qualifications with strong labour market currency. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds were less likely to be entered for the EBacc subjects than their peers.[5]
• Our performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) had stagnated, with scores in line with the OECD averages, at 495 for reading and 493 for maths in 2009.[6]

• PISA 2006 also showed that we had one of the most unequal educational systems in the world, coming near-bottom out of 57 participating countries for educational equity, with one of the biggest gaps in performance between independent and state schools of any developed nation.[7]
• PISA 2009 showed we had a fall in the percentage of students from a disadvantaged background classed as ‘academically resilient’ – the capacity of individuals to prosper despite encountering adverse circumstances – putting us at 17th in the OECD.[8]
• Out of all countries participating in the OECD’s Survey of Adult Skills in 2012, we were the only nation where both literacy and numeracy were no better amongst 16-24-year-olds than amongst the 55-65-year-olds.[9]

These failings damaged the prospects of all children, but particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. It was those who most needed support that were losing out and not being helped to fulfil their potential.[10] This was the context for the Government’s determination to return rigour to the education system.

Charting a new path

Six months after the 2010 General Election, the Government signalled a change in direction, publishing its Schools White Paper The Importance of Teaching. The paper emphasised the crucial role that schools can play in raising pupil attainment, particularly for those from poorer families. It set out the Government’s plan for raising standards through improving teaching quality, introducing rigour to the National Curriculum, granting head teachers greater autonomy over how to run their schools, reforming the accountability system, and giving schools more money to support poorer pupils through the Pupil Premium.

A decade on, we have taken huge strides forward.

The importance of a knowledge-rich curriculum and qualifications

Central to raising standards has been ensuring that all children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, have access to what Matthew Arnold called the ‘best that has been thought and said’ as part of their cultural inheritance.

This Government believes that the 2007 National Curriculum was unnecessarily prescriptive and bureaucratic, and had insufficient detailed subject-based content. The 2007 National Curriculum included a statutory requirement of secondary chemistry pupils to understand ‘that there are patterns in the reactions between substances’. In his paper Could Do Better, the assessment expert Tim Oates used this example to highlight his concerns about the vagueness of the 2007 curriculum, writing:

“This statement essentially describes all of chemistry. So what should teachers actually teach? What are the key concepts which children should know and apply?”[11]

One of our priorities in 2010 was to reform the National Curriculum, restoring knowledge to its heart, and raising expectations of what children should be taught. Our reforms were driven by the ideas of Professor E. D. Hirsch, whose work sets out the importance of the transmission of rich subject knowledge from teachers to pupils. There are two main reasons why pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds particularly benefit from a knowledge-rich approach.

Firstly, securing domain-specific knowledge is essential to learning. Pupils start schools with differing levels of knowledge depending on their background, meaning those with more prior knowledge learn more than those with limited prior knowledge, and therefore the gap between these two groups widens. In his book The Schools We Need And Why We Don’t Have Them, Hirsch explains the ‘Matthew Effect’ within language acquisition. This is the accumulative advantage that pupils with large vocabularies experience once they start school; because they know more, they learn more, and the gap between them and their less advantaged peers grows ever wider.

Applying this to education, Hirsch uses the analogy that knowledge is like Velcro – people who have domain-specific knowledge find that new pieces of knowledge ‘stick’ to it, helping them commit the new information to long-term memory. In the same vein, a lack of domain-specific knowledge can mean that new concepts slip past you or that you make mistakes.

Secondly, knowledge is the cultural inheritance of every child – part of what Michael Oakeshott referred to as the ongoing ‘conversation of mankind’. As Hirsch states:

“In a modern democracy…the duty of the school is to transmit the shared knowledge of the standard language – to transmit the cultural commons of the nation, its public sphere.”[12]

This is particularly true for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, who are less likely to access this ‘communal knowledge’ at home. It is, therefore, important that schools make sure that all pupils have access to this through the delivery of an effectively sequenced knowledge-rich curriculum.

The new National Curriculum, introduced in September 2014, embodies the high expectations we have for all children, especially the poorest. It combines the best elements of the world’s most successful school systems, including Hong Kong, Singapore and Finland, with some of the most effective practice from schools in England.

Alongside our reforms to the National Curriculum, we have reformed our qualifications, putting them on a par with qualifications in the best-performing jurisdictions in the world.

Prior to 2010, our GCSEs and A levels had become increasingly modular in structure and there were multiple opportunities for re-taking and re-sitting assessments at the expense of teaching time, leading to concerns about the maintenance of standards. Rising proportions of pupils gaining higher grades at GCSE suggested grade inflation; the number of pupils gaining A/A* grades at GCSE increased by 58% between 1997 and 2010. Leading academics were concerned about the modular nature of the A level qualifications and repeated assessment windows contributing to many students not developing deep understanding or the necessary skills to make connections between topics necessary for higher study.

After extensive consultation, we improved the depth and range of the content in GCSEs. The result is a suite of new GCSEs that rigorously assess the knowledge and skills acquired by pupils during KS4, in line with expected standards in countries with high-performing education systems, but which are also accessible to pupils of all abilities. We reformed A levels, to improve students’ readiness for the demands of higher education.

We introduced the EBacc school performance measure to ensure that all children have the opportunity to be taught the core academic curriculum too often restricted to pupils from more advantaged backgrounds. The EBacc consists of English, mathematics, at least two sciences, history or geography and a language. These are subjects which form part of the compulsory curriculum in many of the highest-performing countries internationally, at least up to age 15 or 16. The proportion of pupils in state-funded schools taking the EBacc combination of subjects as a whole increased from 21.6% in 2011 to 40% in 2019. For FSM eligible pupils, this figure has risen from 7.9% in 2011 to 25.1% in 2019. The proportion is even higher in some of our best-performing schools. Michaela Community School, a free school in Brent, had an EBacc entry rate of 84% for disadvantaged pupils in 2019.

GCSE mathematics and English are essential to the prospects of young pupils. Those who miss out are at an increased risk of dropping out of education by age 18, and without these qualifications, young people are locked out of many higher-level courses (both university and level 4 and 5 apprenticeships) and key professions, including shortage areas such as nursing. Individuals who achieve five or more good GCSEs including mathematics and English as their highest qualification, have estimated lifetime productivity returns in excess of £100,000 compared to those with below level 2 or no qualifications.[13] Despite their importance, just 35.1% of FSM eligible pupils achieved a C or above in GCSE mathematics and English 2011.

The Government continues to drive up standards to support more young people to achieve GCSE mathematics and English (or an equivalent Level 2 qualification) at grade 4 or above. We require students who do not achieve a grade 4 at age 16 to continue to study these subjects, and students who just missed out on a grade 4 at GCSE are given the opportunity to achieve a GCSE grade 4 or above post-16. Since the introduction of the mathematics and English condition of funding in 2014, the proportion of 16-19 students achieving a GCSE (or Level 2 equivalent) grade C/4 has risen significantly. Around 30,000 more students now achieve GCSE mathematics and English at grade 4 or above than before 2014, and GCSE attainment post-16 has risen from 9.2% in 2014 to 22.2% in 2019. The overall proportion of students age 19 years with a Level 2 in English and mathematics has increased to 71.3% from 67.8% in 2014. The proportion of students age 19 years with a Level 2 in mathematics and English has increased to 47.9% from 45.5% in 2014 for those eligible for FSM. The same figure for those not eligible for FSM stands at 74.9% (71.4% in 2014). Although the attainment gap has widened slightly since 2014, we have seen a +13.5ppt increase in the attainment of Level 2 mathematics and English for FSM pupils since 2010 (+13.1ppts for non-FSM pupils).

At secondary school, too many pupils were being entered into low-quality qualifications in 2010. There was a damaging view that some pupils – often from disadvantaged backgrounds – were not able to access an academic education, and the 2000s saw an enormous growth in the numbers of 16-year-old pupils taking vocational, non-GCSE courses. By 2010 there were nearly 876,000 passes in Level 1 and Level 2 ‘equivalent’ subjects other than GCSE, including Basic Skills and Key Skills”.[14] Pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds were disproportionately entered into these courses, limiting their options for progression to further education or the workplace. Following the Wolf Review of vocational qualifications, we have removed thousands of these low-quality courses which served so many disadvantaged pupils poorly.[15]

Since 2016, the 16-18 school performance tables have only reported technical qualifications that deliver specialist knowledge and skills, enable entry to an apprenticeship or other employment, or provide a route to further study. This resulted in the removal of large numbers of lower quality Level 2 qualifications from the tables. The Department for Education is now doing further work to improve the quality through the review of post-16 qualifications at Level 3 and below.

Early years and primary schools: language development, reading and phonics

Early communication, language and literacy development skills are vital to school readiness as well as outcomes in later life. We know that literacy skills are underpinned by pre-literacy, communication and language skills developed in the early years – over 40% of the overall attainment gap between disadvantaged 16 year olds and their peers has already emerged by age 5.[16] Children with poor vocabulary skills at age 5 are twice as likely to be unemployed when they reach adulthood and three times as likely to have mental health problems.[17]

When the Government took office in 2010, the situation was challenging. In the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP), 56% of children achieved a good level of development. Whilst not directly comparable to the 2010 results, due to the EYFSP profile changing in 2013, the 2019 results found that 71.8% of children achieved a good level of development. Despite progress already made, too many children still fall behind early and it is hard to close the gaps that emerge. This is why, in 2019, we launched Hungry Little Minds – a three-year campaign targeted to reach disadvantaged parents to support their child’s early language development and to set them up for school and beyond. This builds on our wider early years social mobility programme, which includes work to improve the quality of local services and early education, through which we have committed over £60 million. This is underpinned by our planned £3.6 billion investment in the early years entitlements this year. This includes funding specifically targeted to benefit disadvantaged children, such as the early years pupil premium and the entitlement to 15 hours of early education for disadvantaged 2-year-olds.

Evidence shows that reading is the fundamental skill that allows pupils to access the full curriculum throughout their time in education. Children who are reading well by age five are six times more likely than their peers to be on track by age 11 in reading, and 11 times more likely to be on track in mathematics.[18] As such, ensuring that all pupils, particularly those from a disadvantaged background, are taught to read effectively has been central to our reforms. Systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) is an approach which prioritises ensuring that all children can decode words independently, enabling them subsequently to read independently. Evidence has shown that phonics is a highly effective component in the development of early reading skills, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, and that an effectively used SSP programme can play a major role in supporting the development of those otherwise left behind. [19] Therefore, we embedded SSP in the KS1 curriculum to ensure that as many six-year-olds as possible can decode proficiently.

We have continuously supported schools to develop their phonics teaching for the benefit of all their students. In 2012, we offered match-funding to facilitate schools’ use of full SSP programmes and enable them to purchase the associated training and resources. In 2019, we commissioned national Phonics Roadshows to help ensure more schools understood the fundamentals of teaching SSP. Furthermore, more recently, we have invested £26.3 million in a network of 34 English Hubs – primary schools who are leaders in teaching SSP. The Hubs were appointed in 2018 and they are now supporting nearly 3,000 schools across England to improve their teaching of reading, with a focus on SSP, and to improve educational outcomes for the most disadvantaged pupils in Reception and Year 1.

Alongside this support, we have also reformed assessment in primary schools, including reformed national tests for seven and 11-year-olds from 2016. In 2012, the Phonics Screening Check was introduced to confirm whether individual pupils have learned phonics decoding to the expected standard. These assessments are designed to support our drive towards higher standards, with the Phonics Screening Check in Year 1 being repeated in Year 2 by those pupils who have not already reached the standard to ensure that no one is left behind. In addition, the renewed Ofsted framework for primary schools – the Education Inspection Framework – includes a stronger focus on the teaching of reading, now a core part of all inspections.

England achieved its highest ever score in reading in 2016, moving from joint 10th to joint 8th in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) rankings. This follows a greater focus on reading in the primary curriculum, and a particular focus on phonics. The proportion of Year 1 pupils meeting the expected standard in the Phonics Screening Check has gone from 58% in 2012, when the check was introduced, to 82% in 2019.[20] For disadvantaged pupils, this has gone from 44% to 70%.

Mathematics

The Government has also reformed the way in which mathematics is taught. In 2010, the mathematics curriculum was less challenging than in high performing jurisdictions, particularly in relation to number, algebra and geometry. For example, Singapore and Hong Kong were more explicit about the need to secure conceptual understanding and the recall of multiplication facts before written methods are taught. Similarly, Massachusetts and Finland included more demanding content on fractions and decimals by the end of primary.

We introduced a new mathematics National Curriculum programme of study in September 2014, benchmarked against the highest performing jurisdictions in the world in OECD studies.

The new primary programme of study for mathematics has a greater emphasis on written methods of arithmetic, including earlier teaching of times tables, use of formal written methods, and applying mathematics to solve multi-step problems. As Professor Daniel Willingham explained in his book Why Don’t Students Like School, working memory is limited, so it is important to store important knowledge – like times tables – in long term memory to allow a person to focus their working memory on problem solving. In mathematics, such recall from long term memory is essential to be able to add fractions, perform long multiplication and division, and progress to more advanced mathematics. The use of calculators has been removed from KS2 mathematics tests to promote fluent written methods of calculation. KS1 and KS2 tests and teacher assessment frameworks were changed to reflect the new mathematics content of the National Curriculum in 2016, and in 2021 (following the COVID-19-related cancellation of the 2020 assessment) Year 4 pupils will sit a statutory Multiplication Tables Check for the first time to determine if pupils have mastered their times tables and to identify those needing additional support.

The secondary programme of study now prepares young people for further study and work better, by focusing on algebra, geometry, probability, pre-calculus and applications such as financial mathematics and statistics. A new, larger and more challenging mathematics GCSE was introduced in 2015 and was first examined in 2017. 

Alongside reforming the mathematics curriculum, we have also changed the way in which it is taught. Prior to our reforms, pupils were differentiated within classes and expected to progress at different rates. Those who were doing well were expected to accelerate through new content, instead of deepening and consolidating their understanding. Emphasising coverage of generic skills over deep understanding, practice and fluency, limited the ability of pupils to work and reason with mathematics, and left too many pupils unable to perform simple calculations. The use of textbooks – a key tool for teachers in high-performing jurisdictions like Singapore and Finland – had also become unpopular.

Our reforms to mathematics teaching draw on the success of the mastery teaching approach used in East Asian jurisdictions that perform highly in international mathematics tests, such as Shanghai and Singapore. The Education Endowment Fund’s (EEF) evidence summary highlights mastery as a potentially effective way to improve attainment, and also as a promising strategy for narrowing gaps in attainment, pointing in particular to positive findings from a study of the commercial ‘Maths Mastery’ programme.

The Teaching for Mastery programme was first rolled out in 2016, and is now backed by a total of £76 million in funding to reach 11,000 primary and secondary schools by 2023. Teaching for Mastery emphasises whole class teaching that builds knowledge systematically and in depth, allowing students to see the connections between topics and building up knowledge of mathematics as a cohesive whole. For high achieving pupils this avoids a focus on accelerating through curriculum content, and instead ensures that understanding is deep rather than superficial. For lower achieving pupils, it avoids narrowing of the curriculum, and employs same-day intervention so that no pupil gets left behind. This aims to tackle our long tail of underachievement and help us to match the attainment set in high-performing international jurisdictions as well as ensuring high expectations for all pupils, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

England’s average performance improved significantly in mathematics in PISA 2018, driven primarily by improved performance of the lowest attainers, reducing the gap between the highest and lowest achievers.[21] For younger pupils, TIMSS 2015 demonstrated a continued trend of improvement in mathematics performance over time, and in particular significant improvements in the performance of the lowest attainers between 2011 and 2015.[22]

Quality of Teaching and Leadership

Teachers are the foundation of the education system – there are no great schools without great teachers. Being taught by a high-quality teacher is the single most important in-school factor affecting pupil outcomes and high quality teaching has the biggest impact on the grades of pupils from more disadvantaged backgrounds. A high-quality teacher can make nearly half a GCSE difference per pupil, per subject.[23] Improving teacher quality and supply is therefore fundamental to tackling disparities in standards and raising attainment, including amongst disadvantaged groups.

It was clear in 2010 we needed to go further to ensure high quality candidates were attracted into teaching, were well trained, and then supported to stay. The government has introduced a range of reforms to recruit high quality teachers, and there are now over 12,000 more teachers in our schools than there were in 2010.

We have significantly increased school involvement in the recruitment and training of teachers so that trainees learn from effective school practitioners. We introduced School Direct to enable effective schools to recruit and deliver training more easily. Since 2012, we have accredited over 100 schools or multi-academy trusts (MATs) as new providers of Initial Teacher Training (ITT). School-led ITT has grown considerably, with 55% of new postgraduate entrants to ITT being recruited via this route in 2019-20. This marks a significant shift from the university-dominated teacher training prevalent in 2010 and has led to stronger national ITT coverage.

We significantly expanded the prestigious Teach First programme (a charity working to end educational inequality by attracting graduates from high tariff universities to teach in schools in disadvantaged areas). In 2019-20, Teach First recruited 1,709 trainees compared to 560 in 2010-11. Some studies suggest that having a Teach First trainee in a school is associated with school-wide gains in GCSE results of the order of 5% of a pupil standard deviation, or around one grade in one of the pupil’s best eight subjects.[24]

We are continuing to transform the training and development for teachers at all stages of their career. At the heart of great teaching and great school leadership is a shared, evidence-informed understanding of what works. In 2019, we launched our landmark Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy to ensure we can recruit and retain high quality teachers in all areas of the country. We have revised our ITT Core Content Framework, and through the implementation of the Early Career Framework, we will support teachers in the first years of their career with a structured two-year induction into the profession. These programmes are based on the very best evidence of what works in the classroom – on behaviour, pedagogy and instruction – giving teachers the practical knowledge they need to support all of their pupils.

Alongside improving their craft through world-class training and development, teachers need the time and space to deliver great teaching. Responses to the Workload Challenge in 2014 told us that many teachers felt that tasks such as recording, monitoring and analysing data, marking and lesson planning were overly burdensome. Since then, we have taken decisive action, including publishing a workload reduction toolkit. The latest Teacher Workload Survey (2019) reports teachers’, middle and senior leaders’ working hours have broadly fallen by five hours per week since 2016.

We know that the quality of leadership can affect teacher retention and subsequently pupil attainment. The performance of a school almost never exceeds the quality of its leadership and management. For every 100 schools with good leadership and management, 97 have good standards of pupil achievement. For every 100 schools without good leadership and management, however, only two have a good standard of pupil achievement.[25] Both novice and experienced teachers who report higher leadership/management scores for their school tend to have higher job satisfaction and retention, as they are less likely to have left the school or the profession by the following academic year.[26]

We have improved our offer for school leaders, including through the development of improved National Professional Qualifications (NPQs), which now provide training and support for teachers and leaders at all levels from middle and senior leaders as well as heads, to create new support for executive leaders. To support their take-up, we have provided over £30 million in scholarship funding to pay for teachers and leaders in areas of greatest need to undertake these qualifications for free. These qualifications are in the process of being further-improved, to bring them into line with the knowledge contained in the Early Career Framework, to create a continuous and consistent offer of career development. It is our intention that the revised suite of NPQs will complete the golden thread from initial teacher training through to school leadership, rooting teacher and leader development in the best available evidence and collective wisdom of the profession.

In addition, over 4,000 middle and senior leaders have now completed our High Potential programmes, aimed at supporting teachers with the potential to become head teachers to move into leadership roles. These reforms will improve the quality of teaching and leadership in schools, which is fundamental to the experience of pupils, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Behaviour

The standards of behaviour in a school are fundamental to whether pupils can learn effectively. Poor behaviour can lead to a significant loss of learning time, particularly in schools with more pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. TALIS 2018 found that in England around 13% of class time at KS3 is lost due to teachers keeping order amongst pupils. Time lost in classes in England was found to be more acute in schools where more than 60% of pupils came from disadvantaged backgrounds; around 18% of time was lost to disruption (on average), compared to 8% of time in classes with no disadvantaged pupils.[27]

Since 2010, the government has worked hard to promote cultures of positive behaviour in schools, making sure they are calm, safe, disciplined environments, free from the low-level disruption that prevents teachers from teaching, and stops children, including the most disadvantaged, from learning. In collaboration with the Department for Education, Charlie Taylor developed ‘getting the simple things right’ in 2011 – a checklist for school leaders to use to help them develop consistent practice.[28] In 2014, we issued updated advice for schools to make clear that firm but proportionate sanctions for misbehaviour are permissible. These range from verbal reprimands, loss of privileges (such as not being able to participate in a non-uniform day), writing lines or an essay, or providing a school based community service such as picking up litter or weeding the schools grounds. We extended teachers’ searching powers and allowed them to impose same day detentions.

In 2017, we commissioned the behaviour expert Tom Bennett to produce an independent review of school behaviour, focusing on the leadership, culture, and systems that lead to excellence. The review, Creating a Culture, highlighted strategies that school leaders should use to design, build and maintain a school culture that prevents classroom disruption, maintains good discipline and promotes all pupils’ education, focus and wellbeing.[29]

Schools such as Dixons Trinity Academy in Bradford show how an effective approach to behaviour creates an environment in which disadvantaged pupils can excel. Dixons Trinity has been rated Outstanding across the board by Ofsted, with inspectors noting that the school sets very high expectations around attendance, punctuality, handing in homework on time, and pupils taking pride in their work, surroundings and appearance. The school helps pupils to understand how these personal qualities will be critical to their success as they move through their education and careers. As a result, inspectors observed how students’ behaviour in classes, around the academy, and towards their peers and other adults, is exemplary, and how even the small minority of pupils who need support with their behaviour are helped by the school to adapt and improve.[30] A strong track record on behaviour has been a key ingredient in Dixons Trinity’s achievements – both disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils perform well above local and national averages on both attainment and progress measures.[31]

We want all schools to be able to learn from those schools with the best behaviour practices, which is why we announced a £10 million investment in Behaviour Hubs last year. This programme will allow schools with exemplary behaviour cultures to work in partnership with others that want to improve and create environments where all pupils, including disadvantaged children are able to succeed.

Ofsted

In line with our ambition to raise standards, we have significantly reformed school inspections to ensure that schools are held accountable for achieving the high standards that we expect for all pupils, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

In her book, 7 Myths About Education, Daisy Christodoulou details the perceived problems with the previous school inspection regime. Her analysis of Ofsted’s subject reports at the time, which provide a commentary on lessons, curriculum units and schemes of work, suggested a preference for child-led teaching methods above teacher-led instruction. The Government’s major reforms to inspection, introduced in 2012, set a platform for improvement by ensuring schools were accountable for, and focused on, the core priorities of effective teaching, strong leadership, good pupil behaviour, a safe environment and strong academic achievement for all pupils. We sought to encourage schools to focus on evidence-based approaches to pedagogy and the curriculum. The removal by Ofsted of the Satisfactory grade and its replacement with Requires Improvement sent an important message to schools that ‘satisfactory’ was no longer good enough. Schools needed to set their ambitions higher and do more to ensure that the background of pupils did not determine what they could achieve in school.

In 2015, Ofsted made further refinements were made to the inspection arrangements to introduce greater proportionality and further improve the quality of inspections through direct contracting and training of inspectors. We have now embarked on a new phase, with the introduction of Ofsted’s September 2019 Education Inspection Framework. The Department for Education worked closely with Ofsted as it developed these new arrangements, which represent an important evolution of the previous system and rest on a firm foundation of educational research. Ofsted’s new inspection framework places the school curriculum at its centre and recognises that every pupil should be equipped with the knowledge they need to participate, contribute and succeed in life. The framework is built around the insight that this knowledge can only be achieved through an effective curriculum – one that is carefully conceived, sequenced and implemented, and which advances opportunity for all pupils by having a strong academic core. That ensures high standards and a richer education for all pupils. There should be no lowering of expectations, especially for disadvantaged pupils.

Funding 

The National Funding Formula

The Government has made historic reforms to school funding to support our vision to offer opportunity to everyone, no matter what their circumstances or where they live. This has enabled funding to be targeted at those children from disadvantaged backgrounds to ensure that they achieve the fundamentals and are given the support needed to help them achieve their potential.

Since it was introduced in April 2018, the National Funding Formula (NFF) has replaced the postcode lottery of the past, to ensure that funding is distributed on the basis of schools’ and pupils’ characteristics, not accidents of history or geography.

In doing so, the NFF targets funding to those areas which have the greatest numbers of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. We are particularly focused on supporting children who face greater barriers to success, be that because they come from a disadvantaged background, have low prior attainment, or because they speak English as an additional language. Evidence shows that pupils with these characteristics are more likely to need extra support to reach their full potential.

We have protected funding for pupils’ additional needs across the system, and in 2020-21, the schools NFF is providing £6.3 billion towards this – 18% of the funding that the NFF delivers. We have, for example, allocated 7.5% of the total NFF to low prior attainment in 2020-21 (compared to the 4.3% allocated to low prior attainment by local authorities in 2017-18) in order to better-match school funding to need.

At the same time, the formula distributes this funding more fairly, in line with the best available evidence. For example, by using a range of indicators to measure deprivation, we can ensure our funding reaches all those pupils who need it, rather than being limited simply to those who qualify for FSM.

Pupil Premium

On top of targeting funding towards additional needs in the NFF, we provide additional support to schools through the Pupil Premium to improve the academic attainment and wider outcomes of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Pupil Premium has changed the way in which schools provide support to pupils from financially deprived backgrounds, and it has been recognised by the National Audit Office, Public Accounts Committee and Ofsted as having led to an increased emphasis on the needs and outcomes of this pupil group by many schools. It was introduced in 2011 to tackle head-on the long-established and persistent gap in attainment between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils in England, by providing schools with additional funding that reflects the socio-economic circumstances of individual pupils, accompanied by accountability measures that help ensure schools use the funding to benefit this target group.[32]

Prior to the inception of the Pupil Premium, independent analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies[33] indicated that increased funding for disadvantaged pupils would reduce the attainment gap, though this would depend on how resources were used. Initially the Pupil Premium was allocated to schools based on the number of FSM registered pupils, but over time the funding methodology has developed to include pupils who have been in receipt of benefits-based FSM at any point in the last six years, in recognition of the fact that even short periods of time spent in poverty can have long-term negative effects on pupil academic performance. Children and young people who are looked after by the Local Authority, and who have left care through adoption or other specified routes, also attract Pupil Premium funding at a higher rate (known as Pupil Premium Plus). Around 27% of all pupils now attract Pupil Premium funding to the schools they attend, and the total investment from April 2011 to March 2020 stands at more than £18 billion, with a further £2.4 billion to be distributed in the current financial year.

It has been a guiding policy principle that schools should have autonomy over how they use their Pupil Premium funding, based on the premise that school leaders and teachers are best placed to understand and respond to the specific needs of their disadvantaged pupils. As part of this, schools also have the discretion to use the Pupil Premium to support pupils who do not formally attract this funding but who are at particular risk of underperformance, such as children with a designated social worker and young carers. Schools are held to account for their spending decisions through the focus on disadvantaged pupils in Ofsted inspections and the school performance tables, and the requirement for all local authority-maintained schools and most academies to publish details about their strategy for spending the pupil premium and the impact of the approaches chosen.

To help schools make informed decisions about how to use their funding to best effect, we established the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) with an initial endowment of £137m. The EEF which produces and disseminates high-quality research evidence on what works to improve the academic progress and attainment of disadvantaged children and young people in nurseries, schools and colleges. To date, the EEF has committed over £114 million of funding to over 190 projects, involving 1.3 million pupils in over 13,000 schools across England. All EEF-funded projects are rigorously evaluated by independent researchers, using randomised controlled trial methodology where possible, and the resulting evidence is made freely available in a range of accessible outputs, including the Teaching and Learning Toolkit, which is used by the majority of school leaders when deciding how to use their Pupil Premium funding.[34] The EEF recommends, based on its extensive research, that schools should spend up to half of their Pupil Premium funding on recruiting and developing high quality teachers, as quality of teaching has been shown to have a disproportionately positive effect on disadvantaged pupils’ attainment, with the remainder shared between targeted academic programmes and wider "school readiness" initiatives.

More school autonomy and stronger accountability

Critical to the Government’s reforms since 2010 has been to put more power in to the hands of school leaders to enable them to respond better to the situations in their particular schools and local areas, including addressing disadvantage. McKinsey’s 2010 paper How the world’s most improved school systems keep getting better found that a feature of improving school systems globally was to “‘move [the] locus of improvement from the centre to the schools”.[35] We have achieved this through boosting the number of academies and introducing Free Schools.

Academies continue to embody our belief that autonomy with strong accountability is the most effective approach to raising standards. The programme lies at the heart of the Government’s education reforms, and has evolved from a small-scale, targeted improvement policy to the current sector-wide system. Since 2010, the number of academies has grown from 200 to over 9,000, with four out of ten schools now part of an academy trust. At its best, the academies programme produces a more dynamic and responsive education system by allowing school leaders, rather than bureaucrats, to make decisions based on local need and the interests of their pupils, including disadvantaged pupils. We require a high level of accountability and transparency for all academy trusts. We also expect shared accountability ensuring that all schools within a trust support each other, and the trust remains accountable for them all.

As of March 2020, 75% of sponsored primary and secondary academies that have been inspected are Good or Outstanding. These academies typically replaced underperforming schools, and only around 1 in 10 sponsored academies were judged Good or Outstanding as their predecessor schools, before they became sponsored academies. Sponsored academies have a greater proportion of FSM eligible pupils than the national average, and these pupils are benefitting from those improvements. Standards in under-performing schools that have become academies in recent years have, in many cases, risen more quickly than in similar Local Authority-maintained schools. Those sponsored academies that have been open for the longest have made substantial gains in performance.[36]

Hill Avenue Academy primary school in Wolverhampton (a sponsored academy within Manor Multi Academy Trust) perfectly illustrates the difference these reforms have made. The school became an academy after Ofsted found in 2015 that it was failing to provide an acceptable standard of education for its pupils. School leaders, trustees and staff used their autonomy to transform the school and in 2019 it received an Outstanding rating across all categories of inspection. They focused on the key pillars of very high expectations of all staff and pupils, an ambitious curriculum, a rigorous programme of staff support and training, and effective targeting of Pupil Premium funding. Hill Avenue achieves some of the best progress scores in the country for disadvantaged pupils and parents describe the school as having ‘risen from the ashes’.[37] 

As part of the broader academies programme, the Free Schools programme was designed to bring innovation to the system and to drive wider improvements. Since 2010, we have opened over 500 new Free Schools (excluding studio schools and university technical colleges) across the country, which will provide over 270,000 places when at full capacity, with many addressing the needs of disadvantaged areas.

The results speak for themselves: in 2019, seven of the top 15 Progress 8 scores for state-funded schools in England were achieved by Free Schools, including three in the top five: Eden Boys’ School Birmingham (FSM6[38] = 40%), Eden Girls’ School Coventry (FSM6 = 41%) and Michaela Community School in Brent (FSM6 = 41%). Free Schools also provide strong support for disadvantaged pupils. In 2019, disadvantaged pupils at secondary free schools made more progress and achieved better results than disadvantaged pupils at any other type of state-funded school. The most-recently-commissioned application rounds (waves 13 and 14) targeted areas with low educational standards in need of a new school, which will ensure that these schools have the greatest possible impact on improving outcomes, particularly for disadvantaged pupils.[39]

In addition, we have radically reformed accountability, so that the lead measure of accountability in both primary and secondary schools is now that of the progress children make in that school. In doing so we deliberately moved from threshold measures, which encouraged schools to focus on the C/D borderline at secondary and the old “level 4” at primary. This former “threshold” approach to accountability operated at the expense of less-able students, for whom their progress towards lower grades, or “levels” at primary, could be significant achievements. It also did nothing to incentivise high standards for the most able students, when the move from a B to an A grade or higher went unrecognised by school accountability measures. In using progress rather than absolute attainment, we also sought to ensure that schools were judged for the difference they made for all their pupils, no matter what their starting points or backgrounds.

Doubling down – where we go from here

The Government has been relentlessly raising standards over the last decade through the reforms outlined in this paper. Standards are rising, and this is particularly improving the education of disadvantaged children of all ethnic backgrounds.

The proportion of schools rated Good or Outstanding has risen to 86% from 68% in 2010. This means tens of thousands more children are receiving the education they deserve, and that most disadvantaged pupils now attend Good or Outstanding schools, giving them better prospects for a successful adult life. Since 2011, the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and others has narrowed by 13% (primary) and 9% (secondary).

There is still, however, a great deal to be done, and we are not complacent. That the attainment gap widened slightly within the last year (0.5% in primary and 0.4% in secondary) demonstrates the importance of embedding our reforms further. As the Education Select Committee’s inquiry sets out, white pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds continue to lag behind. There are many reasons for this, and in many ways, it is a complex area. At the heart of the issue, however, is a simple truth: we know a great education is fundamental to improving pupil outcomes, yet not every child – especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds – has access to this.

There are some who would suggest that the solution is to change tack and to do something different for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, such as lowering our expectations on studying the core academic subjects or changing the curriculum to make it more ‘relevant’. The Government rejects this wholeheartedly. A great education for wealthier pupils is a great education for disadvantaged pupils – of all races and ethnicities.

We are confident in this claim because our reforms since 2010 have demonstrated that it is possible to achieve the highest standards with pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. Some of the very best schools in the country have higher than average numbers of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, and we believe that if all schools were able to raise attainment in the way that these schools have shown is possible, large numbers of disadvantaged pupils would benefit. Below are some case studies of such schools:

Case study 1: Dixons Trinity Academy opened as a free school in 2012, as part of the wider Dixons Multi-Academy Trust. Dixons Trinity serves a highly disadvantaged population in Bradford yet sets the highest of expectations for all pupils. It was the first free secondary school in the country to be rated Outstanding by Ofsted in 2014. It places a particular emphasis on the development of good literacy and numeracy skills, and has highly effective systems to manage behaviour. The school is highly focused on its core values of hard work, trust and fairness, as well as its key drivers of mastery, autonomy and purpose, which Ofsted noted have been fundamental in securing Dixons Trinity’s outstanding achievement. Their successful approach is evident in its results; both disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils in the school have EBacc entry rates twice the national average and results more than three times the national average. Its 2018/19 results showed Progress 8 Scores of 1.21 for both disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils, well above both the local and national averages for pupils with similar prior attainment. 

Case study 2: Michaela Community School is a free school located in Brent and its share of disadvantaged pupils is above the national average. Michaela is an Outstanding school, which specialises in providing a classical liberal curriculum, using the Core Knowledge Curriculum, with a strong emphasis on traditional academic subjects. The school believes that knowledge about the world is central to pupils’ success, and its academically rigorous curriculum has enabled all its pupils – disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged alike – to achieve exceptionally well. Its disadvantaged pupils have high EBacc entry rates (84% in 2019) and last year they achieved well above their local and national peers (67% achieved EBacc at grade 4/C or above, compared to 41% in the same Local Authority and 25% nationally). Michaela’s progress scores are equally impressive, with disadvantaged pupils achieving a KS4 Progress 8 score of 1.39 in 2018/19, much higher than the Local Authority average of 0.63. These accomplishments are underpinned by outstanding leadership and teaching, high expectations of all pupils, a strong sense of community at the school, and effective use of the additional funding that the Department for Education provides to support disadvantaged pupils. Michaela is also an exemplar when it comes to establishing a supportive environment in which to study. It is known for its high behavioural standards and the excellent conduct of its pupils not only inside the classroom, but throughout the school.

Case study 3: Brampton Manor Academy in east London exemplifies how implementing the combination of our reforms leads to higher standards driving better outcomes for both disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils. In 2010, Brampton Manor was an Ofsted-rated Good school. After it converted into an academy in 2012 it went on to achieve two consecutive Outstanding assessments by Ofsted in 2012 and again in 2018. Its latest inspection report highlights how the school’s strong leadership, high expectations for pupil behaviour, high quality teaching, and its inspiring curriculum all combine to create a positive and focused learning environment where pupils excel. The school achieves all this with an above-average share of disadvantaged pupils. The school also uses its Pupil Premium and Year 7 catch-up premium to good effect, giving targeted support to disadvantaged pupils to ensure they make progress. The results speak for themselves – last year Brampton Manor achieved a Progress 8 scores for disadvantaged pupils of 0.76, outstripping the equivalent local and national scores.

Case study 4: Harris Academy Bermondsey is a girls’ secondary academy in South East London, part of the wider Harris Federation. Its share of disadvantaged pupils is well above average and so are its disadvantaged pupils scores. In the latest results, disadvantaged pupils’ attainment and progress at KS4 far outstripped both national and local authority averages. There are many ingredients to Harris Academy Bermondsey’s successes, and these align directly to the Department for Education’s vision for education. Its starts with expectations. Ofsted has reported that the school is highly ambitious for all pupils, including vulnerable pupils, disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs. The school operates an uncompromising but caring approach to behaviour, creating the right conditions for pupils to study. As a result, irrespective of ability, pupils in the school are highly motivated and enjoy education. The school has fully embraced our reforms to the National Curriculum and, beyond this, offers pupils focused and constructive extra-curricular activities like a business mentoring programme. The school uses its disadvantage funding wisely and effectively. Ofsted has praised the school, both for the quality of its teaching – particularly the basic skills of reading, literacy, and numeracy – and for its constant efforts to maintain and exceed teaching quality. These ingredients together have enabled Harris Academy Bermondsey to maintain a consistently strong record on progress for disadvantaged pupils.

Common amongst these examples is a focus on strong leadership, high standards of behaviour, a knowledge-rich curriculum, and excellent support and development for teachers. We must double down and continue to push for equal access to an education of the highest standard for all pupils. As E.D. Hirsch said,

“A child’s initial lack of intellectual capital is not an immutable given that our schools are powerless to change, rather, it is a challenge that schools can meet by overcoming their academic incoherence. Throughout the world, just one way has been devised to meet the double challenge of educational excellence and fairness: to teach definite skills and a solid core of content.”[40]

This is the challenge we must continue to rise to.

The Government has recently launched a Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, which will review inequality in the UK, focusing on areas including poverty, education, employment, health and the criminal justice system. The Commission will look at outcomes for the whole population and aim to submit its findings to the Prime Minister by the end of the year. This independent Commission will improve the quality of data and evidence about the types of barriers faced by people from different backgrounds to help inform actions and drive effective and lasting change. We will carefully review the findings of this Commission to make sure that we continue to push for equal access to an education of the highest standards for all pupils.

Technical Annex

Achievement of white FSM-eligible pupils

The Department for Education (DfE) collects and publishes comprehensive statistics on ethnicity, disadvantage and attainment. At Early Years, KS1, KS2 and KS4, we see smaller gaps in attainment between FSM-eligible pupils and others than we do between White FSM-eligible pupils, and other White pupils (see Figures A, B, C and D).

We see a similar pattern when looking at progress between KS1 and KS2, and between KS2 and KS4. FSM-eligible pupils make less progress than other pupils in all subjects, and White FSM-eligible pupils make less progress than both other White pupils and also other non-White, FSM-eligible pupils (see Figures H and I).

There are a variety of headline measures at EY, KS1, KS2 and KS4. These are set out in full in Figure J.

Variation within the White FSM-eligible cohort

At national level, our published statistics capture the variation in attainment between White FSM-eligible pupils and other White pupils, including between the more detailed ethnic groupings. For all key stages, they show that among FSM-eligible pupils, pupils from “any other white background” are the best-performing group, and among non-FSM pupils, “Irish” pupils are the best performing group. For both FSM-eligible and non-FSM-eligible pupils, “Gypsy/Roma” pupils and “travellers of Irish heritage” have the lowest performance (see Figures K, L, M and N).

At regional and LA levels, our published statistics include breakdowns by ethnicity (including the minor ethnic groups) and by FSM status, but not by both ethnicity and FSM together.

The factors that contribute to this underachievement

Educational attainment and underachievement are multi-faceted and are influenced by factors inside, and out of, educational settings. We have discussed our school-based reforms to tackle educational underachievement in previous sections. Key factors outside of school that affect educational outcomes include: 

The home learning environment: Children’s development during the early years depends on the type of environment provided by a child’s family, the availability and quality of early education and childcare, and the wider community and economic conditions. The Sutton Trust have estimated that the poorest children are already 11 months behind their better-off peers before they even start at school[41]. The frequency and quality of home learning activities undertaken by adults with pre-school children in and around the home is a strong independent driver of children’s short and longer-term cognitive development, school readiness[42] and later school attainment[43].

Early years provision: Evidence is consistent on the benefits of early education to children’s learning and development, particularly for the most disadvantaged children[44]. Research from 2016 found that 40% of the disadvantage gap at age 16 appears by age 5[45].

The Department understands the importance of these factors in influencing educational outcomes and has made record investment in this area. These include 15 hours-a-week free early education for disadvantaged 2-year-olds, and all 3- and 4-year-olds, and the Early Years Pupil Premium, which provides up to £302 per eligible child per year for disadvantaged 3- and 4-year-olds. The government is planning to spend over £3.6 billion in 2020-21 to support free early education entitlements. To ensure that early years settings are providing high-quality, evidence-based support for disadvantaged children: 

• We have invested £26 million to set up a network of English Hubs.
• We are investing £20 million to provide professional development for early years practitioners.
• We are investing £5 million, in partnership with the EEF, to understand ‘what works’ to support disadvantaged children in settings.

This investment complements our significant programme of reforms to the Early Years Foundation Stage, which will help ensure that the learning and support children receive in settings reflects the latest evidence on effective practice.

In light of the evidence which tells us that what happens at home in children’s earliest years, before they start school, can also have a huge influence on later outcomes, we have launched Hungry Little Minds – a three-year campaign to help parents support their child’s early language development, to set them up for school and beyond.

The role of place: the wider evidence base suggests that place likely plays a smaller role in explaining the underperformance of some groups. There is also much more variation within regions and local areas then between them. FFT Education Datalab analysis published last year shows that long-term disadvantaged white British students perform similarly comparatively poorly across all English regions – and there is little variation in their performance across the country[46]. However, disaggregating data by region, and even LA, can mask significant variation within different places for different groups of children. Equally, using administrative boundaries may not always be the most appropriate way to analyse performance.

In general, the differences in overall average performance between different places are explained by the characteristics of the children who live in different areas, such as ethnicity, scale of disadvantage and wider factors such as vulnerabilities or special educational needs. The department’s research on the factors explaining KS4 performance show that family background, personal characteristics and home environment were much more strongly related to performance than geographic area.

The Department’s recognition of the role of locality is reflected in our place-focused programmes. For example, our Opportunity Areas programme is part of our approach to supporting parts of the country where there is entrenched disadvantage. As well as this, we are investing up to £24 million to improve educational and employment outcomes, and boost the aspirations of young people in an area with a high proportion of white, long-term disadvantaged pupils, through Opportunity North East (ONE).

Role models: The department does not have substantial evidence here, but this may reflect the department’s remit and means of achieving change, rather than a lack of evidence.

Effects of Covid-19

We are working to understand the impacts of Covid for different pupil groups as the evidence base develops. For example, the department has provided support for the EEF’s recent rapid evidence review of the impact of school closures on the disadvantage attainment gap.[47] The EEF estimated that a likely range for the widening of the attainment gap at the end of KS2 is between 11% and 75%, with a median estimate of 36%, as a result of the closure of schools from March to September 2020.

The Department is using the emerging evidence, both around Covid impacts and good practice in mitigating these, to design and target policy interventions and investments. Some of our key actions to date have included:

• We launched the Oak National Academy to ensure that 180 hours of high-quality lessons are accessible to all schools and pupils, with at least four hours of lessons a day for secondary and three for primary.
• We have committed over £100 million to improve access to remote education. This includes providing devices and 4G connections for children who would otherwise not have access and are preparing for exams (in Year 10), those who receive support from a social worker and those who are care leavers.
• We have announced a £1 billion Covid “catch-up” package to directly tackle the impact of lost teaching time, including the National Tutoring Programme, worth £350 million, which will increase access to high-quality tuition for the most disadvantaged young people over the 2020-21 academic year.

The impacts of underachievement

There is a wealth of evidence that educational underachievement impacts an individual in terms of their future education outcomes, employment outcomes, and wider outcomes (such as health). For example, performance at GCSE is related to lifetime earnings: DfE research suggests that individuals who achieve five or more good GCSEs, including English and mathematics, as their highest qualification have increased lifetime earnings worth around £100,000, compared to those with below-level-2 qualifications.[48] Higher achievement at school also opens up opportunities at further and higher education, and in the labour market.

Poor educational attainment is also associated with worse health later in life, a greater probability of truancy and exclusion, and a higher likelihood of being involved in crime. Equally, given the strong association between maternal qualifications and school performance, underachievement is likely to have substantial intergenerational effects.[49]

The Department understands these dynamics and, indeed, these have been a driving force behind the reforms we have made to raise school and educational standards, as well as many of our other key programmes such as Opportunity Areas, the Pupil Premium and Opportunity North East. 

Figure A: Percentage of pupils achieving a good level of development in EYFSP: 2019

Figure B: Percentage of pupils meeting the expected standard at the end of KS 1: 2019

Figure C: Percentage of pupils meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics at the end of KS2: 2019

Figure D: Attainment 8 (KS4), 2019

Figure E: Percentage of pupils achieving grade 4/C or above in English and maths GCSEs

Figure F: Trends in disadvantaged pupils attainment gap index at KS4

• The disadvantage gap index summarises the relative attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and all other pupils. The gap index is more resilient to changes to grading systems and accountability measures, therefore it offers greater comparability between years. The index ranks all pupils in the country and asks whether disadvantaged pupils typically rank lower than non-disadvantaged pupils. A disadvantage gap of zero would indicate that pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds perform as well as pupils from non-disadvantaged backgrounds. We measure whether the disadvantage gap is getting larger or smaller over time. For key stage 4 it is based on the average grades achieved in English and mathematics GCSEs.
• At KS4, the gap between disadvantaged pupils and others, measured using disadvantage attainment the gap index, has remained broadly stable compared to last year, widening by 0.4% between 2018 and 2019, from 3.68 to 3.70. This is the second year in a row where there has been a small increase, but it is still 9.1% lower than in 2011.

Figure G: EBacc entry/achievement rates for FSM vs non-FSM pupils

Figure H: Progress scores at the end of KS2: 2019

Figure I: Progress 8 (KS4), 2019

Figure J: Headline measures at EY, KS1, KS2 and KS4

The EYFSP publication includes 3 measures, each broken down by FSM and ethnicity. These are:

1. Percentage reaching a good level of development
2. Percentage achieving at least the expected level across all early learning goals
3. Average total point score across all early learning goals

The Key Stage 1 publication includes 4 measures, each broken down by FSM and ethnicity. These are:

1. Percentage meeting the expected standard in reading teacher assessment
2. Percentage meeting the expected standard in writing teacher assessment
3. Percentage meeting the expected standard in maths teacher assessment
4. Percentage meeting the expected standard in science teacher assessment

The Key Stage 2 publication includes 12 measures, broken down by FSM and ethnicity. These are:

1. Percentage reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths (combined)
2. Percentage reaching the expected standard in reading test
3. Percentage reaching the expected standard in writing teacher assessment
4. Percentage reaching the expected standard in maths test
5. Percentage reaching the expected standard in grammar, punctuation and spelling test
6. Percentage reaching the expected standard in science teacher assessment
7. Progress in reading
8. Progress in writing
9. Progress in maths
10. Average scaled score in reading
11. Average scaled score in maths
12. Average scaled score in grammar punctuation and spelling

The Key Stage 4 publication includes 8 measures, broken down by FSM and ethnicity. These are:

1. Average Progress 8 score
2. Average Attainment 8 score
3. Percentage entering the English Baccalaureate
4. Percentage achieving grades 9-5 in English and Mathematics
5. Percentage achieving grades 9-4 in English and Mathematics
6. English Baccalaureate average point score
7. Percentage achieving grades 9-5 in all pillars of the English Baccalaureate
8. Percentage achieving grades 9-4 in all pillars of the English Baccalaureate

Figure K: Percentage of pupils achieving a good level of development in EYFSP by ethnicity and free school meal eligibility. Year: 2019

Figure L: Percentage of pupils reaching the expected standard in KS1 teacher assessments by ethnicity and free school meal eligibility. Year: 2019

Coverage: England, state-funded schools only

Source: National pupil database

Notes:

1. Includes pupils working at the expected standard and pupils working at greater depth.             
2. Includes pupils not eligible for free school meals and for whom free school meal eligibility was unclassified or could not be determined.

Figure M: Percentage of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics (combined) at KS2 by ethnicity and FSM eligibility. Year: 2019

Coverage: England, state-funded schools only

Source: National pupil database

Notes:

1. Includes pupils working at the expected standard and pupils working at greater depth.                
2. Includes pupils not eligible for free school meals and for whom free school meal eligibility was unclassified or could not be determined.

Figure N: Progress 8 scores by ethnicity and FSM eligibility

Year: 2019

Figure O: % of year 1 pupils meeting the required standard of phonics decoding 2011-12 to 2018-19

• In 2019, 71% of disadvantaged pupils met the phonics standard in year 1 compared to 84% of all other pupils. This gives a gap of 14 percentage points, unchanged from 2018.
• The gap has decreased from 17 percentage points in 2012.
• At the same time, the proportion of year 1 pupils classified as disadvantaged decreased from 24% in 2012 to 19% in 2019.

Figure P: Disadvantage attainment gap index at KS2

• The gap between disadvantaged pupils and others, measured using the disadvantage gap index, remained at a similar level compared to last year.
• There was a small increase of 0.5% (from 2.90 to 2.91) since 2018 but an overall decrease of 12.8% since 2011

August 2020

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