The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill brings together a wide range of education and social care measures under the “motherhood and apple pie” banner of ensuring children are “safe, healthy, happy and treated fairly”. Who could argue with that?
Well, in reality there is likely to be some vociferous opposition when you get into the detail of control over academy schools and oversight of independent schools.
However, when it comes to the aims to break down barriers to opportunity and raise education standards, the “treated fairly” bit of the bill is vital.
Levelling the playing field
Children from poorer homes are treated exceedingly unfairly by the education system today, despite the best intentions of many schools. This is seen most starkly with the growing gap in attainment between disadvantaged pupils and their peers.
Some might argue advantage is inherent in a world of haves and have-nots; that it’s naïve to expect equality of opportunity. Perhaps we will never fully level the playing field, but we should absolutely expect everyone to have a fair shot - after all, if we don’t, how can we ensure we make the most of all the talent available to build a stronger and more productive economy?
So while this bill does not fix some fundamentals - such as the erosion in real-terms funding for poorer pupils and teacher shortages in disadvantaged areas - measures such as free breakfast clubs, so poorer children aren’t too hungry to learn, and giving local authorities more control over admissions, so all schools take their fair share of disadvantaged pupils, could be transformative.
Tackling social segregation
Our schools are highly socially segregated with children eligible for free school meals (FSM) often concentrated in lower-performing schools, while better-off children attend those that are higher performing.
In the most segregated area in England, Solihull, you’d need to move 32 per cent of pupils across schools to create an even spread of disadvantaged pupils.
And local authorities with high levels of segregation have larger attainment gaps between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils, driven by the under-performance of poorer children rather than over-performance of their peers.
But encouragingly, the data also suggests more mixed intakes would certainly not be detrimental for overall attainment in an area.
How have our schools ended up segregated across socio-economic groups? There are multiple interlinked issues.
Schools with “good” or “outstanding” ratings have no incentive in the inspection regime for them to take in pupils that may be viewed as more “challenging”, such as if they have special educational needs and disabilities or those from the poorest neighbourhoods.
High ratings increase competition for places, driving up house prices in the local catchment, and parents who can afford to will often relocate to access a better school. Less well-off parents may be priced out or choose one school over another because of the cost of items such as branded uniforms (another issue this bill aims to tackle). And so, the vicious circle continues.
Admissions alterations
While there will be much debate about parts of the Children’s Wellbeing Bill, local-authority oversight of school admissions is a no-brainer. It costs nothing and it’s absolutely right that elected local representatives oversee how schools meet the needs of their communities.
But what matters is what local authorities do with those powers. The bold approach currently being taken by Brighton and Hove City Council to change admissions policies across the schools they control is an example others could follow.
Last year, they introduced priority places for children eligible for FSM at oversubscribed schools and they’re now consulting on further changes, including increasing the percentage of places reserved for FSM-eligible children from 25 per cent to 30 per cent, as well as introducing a ballot for a proportion of places.
But only a small minority of all the country’s schools are now run by local authorities, and these schools tend to have higher rates of disadvantage compared to academies.
Without arbitration, it’s left to the goodwill of individual school and MAT leaders, 90 per cent of whom have autonomy over their school admissions policies, to take the leap of opening up their school to children of all backgrounds. Some are already doing this - both local-authority maintained schools and academies.
Last year, the Sutton Trust launched the Fair Schools Admissions Pledge, and so far we’ve worked with over 60 schools to help them review and improve their admissions processes.
But the sheer extent of social segregation in our schools means it can only be eradicated through national policy change that requires all schools to serve their communities fairly, and a school accountability system which reduces the disincentives to do so.
This bill provides a clear route to do that - something that would not only make access to good schools fairer, but potentially improve social cohesion across our communities.
Nick Harrison is chief executive of The Sutton Trust
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