After half a year in post, the Schools White Paper provided a genuine opportunity for education secretary Nadhim Zahawi to set out a compelling roadmap to tackle underperformance in schools and, critically, the widening disadvantage gap that blights our country.  

There has never been a more opportune moment to grasp the thorny issues that prevent so many children from fulfilling their potential.

The pandemic shone a harsh light on inequalities that stem from wider societal issues, but that have a real impact on children; on their access to a safe home environment, to digital technology, and, sadly, to the guarantee of three nutritious meals each day.

It also confirmed what many of us knew already, that schools are the bedrock of communities and a crucial lifeline for families who, too often, have limited access to public health and early intervention services.

So did the education secretary deliver?  

There were some positive announcements in the White Paper; notably the commitment to increased teacher training and the adoption of an Education Policy Institute (EPI) recommendation for increased pay incentives for teachers in high-demand subjects in challenging areas of the country; the re-endowment of the Education Endowment Foundation; and the commitment to a national register of pupils missing from school.  

Many missed opportunities 

But there is so much more the White Paper could have done to address other important barriers to equality of outcomes.

It should have acknowledged the role of poverty in determining outcomes.

Of course, poverty should not limit children’s success but we cannot ignore the fact that, by the end of secondary school, disadvantaged children are already over 18 months behind their more affluent peers and around 40 per cent of that gap is already evident by age 5.  

Despite this, the White Paper gave us no substantial solutions to addressing the disadvantage gap or lifting children out of poverty. Over a fifth of school children are eligible for free school meals, and that figure is likely to grow as we head into a cost of living crisis.

Yet, beyond a new leadership qualification, there is no extra support for the early years (which we know are crucial to later outcomes) and nothing new on wider wellbeing support for young people.  

The Department for Education might argue this is a White Paper focused on schools, but we know that schools do not operate in isolation.

They are an important part of an ecosystem that should support families through early intervention, welfare, health, housing and education services.  

Attention-grabbing headlines that 90 per cent of pupils should achieve expected standards by the end of primary, longer school opening hours and a “Parent Pledge” are all well and good, but where are the tools to achieve this?

How can we improve the attainment of disadvantaged pupils when there are long-standing shortages of teachers, a real term cut to the Pupil Premium and education recovery funding is only a third of what is actually needed? 

Ignoring those in need

Since the start of the pandemic, children have fallen behind in reading and maths, more so for secondary and disadvantaged pupils and more so for those in parts of the country that should be at the heart of the government’s “levelling up” strategy.   

The White Paper simply doesn’t go far enough to meet the needs of these children. It is a collection of announcements (some new, many old) that, taken together, are not going to transform outcomes.

The ambition to move all schools into multi-academy trusts is a necessary tidying up of the school landscape that has been left to fragment for over a decade - it is not a silver bullet to improvement or equity.

And let’s not kid ourselves, the debate about who should run trusts, which trusts are good, and the role of local school governing bodies is likely to run on and on, eating up precious resources in Sanctuary Buildings.  

Many schools are already facing the pressures of lost learning, rising mental ill-health and the erosion of their budgets due to inflation.

What we needed was a White Paper that backed bold ambitions with the scale of support that will be needed to deliver these - both in schools and in our wider society.

Natalie Perera is the chief executive of the Education Policy Institute. She tweets @natalieperera1