Whoever is the next education secretary will face a bulging in-tray - teacher pay, recruitment, retention, a crumbling school estate, the role of Ofsted, high persistent absence rates, special educational needs and mental health services straining under the weight of need, and more.
In this context, it’s perhaps not surprising attention has strayed from another crisis facing education: a surging socioeconomic attainment gap that has rolled back more than a decade of progress.
But this threatens to be nothing short of a ticking time bomb for the next generation.
Wider school gaps tend to mean wider gaps in access to post-18 pathways, careers and ultimately the opportunity to thrive in life.
As new public polling already shows, 83 per cent of people feel there are big gaps between social classes, and almost half feel this is getting worse - it’s an issue we can’t ignore.
In a constrained fiscal environment, fixing this will not be easy. Deep social change doesn’t come on the cheap and, in the long term, a future government must aim to restore real-term falls in education investment and reprioritise the futures of the next generation.
Fair Opportunity for All - the Sutton Trust’s manifesto for the next government - offers a series of policies, both large and small, that could play a part in narrowing the attainment gap.
1. Funding rebalancing
Rebalancing the national funding formula back towards schools facing high needs, and in particular recognising the additional impact of persistent disadvantage above and beyond yearly free school meal (FSM) eligibility, would be a cost-free start.
2. Reduce social segregation
Addressing social segregation in the state school system would also help.
The concentration of affluence and deprivation in schools at opposite ends of the performance tables leads to a vicious circle of entrenched inequality. But the current system, including accountability measures and Ofsted ratings, incentivises schools to take on more advantaged intakes.
As a first step, schools nationally should be required to use pupil premium eligibility as an oversubscription criterion, following the example of Brighton where local authority secondaries will have to give priority to children on FSM over those in the catchment area.
3. Restore pupil premium funding and extend it to post-16
However, to truly address the scale of the problem, additional funding will undoubtedly be required, with schools already stretched to breaking point.
Pupil premium funding has declined by nearly 20 per cent in real terms since 2015. The next government should aim to restore those levels by the end of the next Parliament. It should also extend the pupil premium to schools and colleges post-16.
Using eligibility at age 16 would benefit close to 300,000 young people per year and facilitate evidence-based targeted interventions, such as tutoring and attendance programmes for this age group, as well as building teacher CPD in the most deprived schools and colleges.
Implementation will no doubt be a challenge, particularly in bigger colleges, and evidence on what works will need to catch up with funding, but a small-scale pilot would be one solution.
4. The role of tutoring
Tutoring will also need to be addressed by the next government. This could be delivered by re-introducing dedicated funding, with a higher level of central subsidy, or incorporating stronger expectations on schools’ use of pupil premium spend.
But when gaps are growing, we can’t afford to remove one of the best-evidenced tools in our armoury.
5. Boosting early teacher pay
As with many things, it’s the most disadvantaged schools that will suffer most from the recruitment and retention crisis in teaching. Underlying issues on pay, workload and time for professional development will need to be addressed.
But an extension of the existing Levelling Up Premium for early career teachers in deprived areas to more subjects (including English, geography and biology) would be welcome in the short-term, accompanied by a guarantee of the payments for five years and an increase in the amount awarded.
6. Extend FSM funding
FSM has been a hotly debated issue of late, with Mayor of London Sadiq Khan introducing universal meals for primary school pupils.
An alternative would be to focus funds on need by extending eligibility to all families on universal credit, at both secondary and primary schools.
7. Improve services around schools
Many of the problems in education originate outside the school gates, with schools increasingly expected to address them on their own.
Wider support services, including Camhs, need to be built up to ease this strain, but nonetheless, schools often play a trusted “anchor” role in communities, and schools can make a difference, as long as they are adequately resourced to do so.
Ultimately a holistic problem will require a holistic solution, combining large-scale investment with smaller targeted programmes, as well as addressing underlying issues and rebalancing existing priorities.
The question is whether the next government, of whichever colour, will be able to deliver.
Carl Cullinane is director of research at The Sutton Trust
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