It could be argued that the Levelling Up White Paper stole much of the limelight from the Schools White Paper that followed just a few weeks later.

Levelling Up was, of course, orchestrated by former education secretary Michael Gove, so perhaps it is no surprise that education featured in it so heavily. And the concept of social mobility is intrinsically linked with education, so some education-related proposals were inevitable.

But it still made educational headlines in a way that the Schools White Paper did not, and a big factor in that was a controversial plan for the creation of new specialist sixth-form free schools.

The proposal formed part of a broader scheme to create 55 new education improvement areas (EIAs) stretching from Cornwall to Leeds, from Dorset to Derby. These areas will receive additional support around education, including extra cash to help schools provide retention payments to “keep the best teachers” in the highest priority subjects. They will also, it was explained, be “prioritised for the location” of new specialist sixth-form free schools.

The idea is that these provisions will fill “cold spots” in the country, where the Department for Education (DfE) says there is a lack of settings with the calibre that can ensure “talented children from disadvantaged backgrounds have access to the highest standard of education this country offers”.

Beyond that, there wasn’t much detail. But there was enough to create widespread anger on social media, with arguments that it would create huge problems in the areas where these schools were situated as well as concern that the government had seemingly written off existing provision.

So, what could these new selective sixth forms look like and how might they impact the education system?

The paper names the selective Harris Westminster Sixth Form, in London, and Sir Isaac Newton Sixth Form Free School, in Norwich, as examples of the type of 16-19 provision the government wants to see. To get into both schools, students currently have to meet tough GCSE entry requirements - and for Harris Westminster, they also need to pass an additional admissions test.

James Handscombe, principal of Harris Westminster Sixth Form, says that at his school, it is made clear that “front and centre, we are a school for disadvantaged students” to help them achieve good outcomes.

“I’m really passionate about enabling pupils from ordinary and disadvantaged backgrounds to access top universities and jobs - and this is my best way of doing it,” he says.

To do this, though, means taking a stance that perhaps seems at odds with how you might imagine a selective sixth form in the heart of London would operate: “There is a cultural attitude at Harris Westminster: we assume no one has any money.”

This ethos feeds into many elements of how it operates - perhaps most importantly around its admissions policy.

He says giving places to disadvantaged pupils is “an absolute priority - not based on points in an admissions test. If you pass and you’re disadvantaged, you get a place.”

It seems this works well for the setting, with 33 per cent of students at Harris Westminster classed as disadvantaged.

Of course, though, you can only give places to disadvantaged students if they apply, so Handscombe says they have to work hard to attract students by going out into the community and telling local schools about what they offer at the college.

“We’ve worked with a number of 11-16 schools to engage their Year 10 and 11 students,” he explains. “Both myself and our current students have delivered assemblies in those schools to reach potential students there.”

Once in the school, Harris Westminster ensures that disadvantaged students can access what is on offer at the school by removing barriers that might otherwise have prevented those from less-well-off backgrounds participating.

Access to a study space is a big concern for disadvantaged students, so the school building is open from 7am to 6:30pm, allowing “students in shared accommodation or [who] lack quiet study space” to use the facilities.

In addition, the school has a well-stocked library and, perhaps crucially, it also ensures that any extracurricular options are feasible for those on low incomes.

 “We work hard to make our trips ‘no cost’ and we don’t advertise opportunities that have cost or are expensive,” says Handscombe. 

As a consequence, he says, disadvantaged students can “confidently click on boxes without the fear that they can’t say yes because they know it will cost money”. 

He reveals that the school has “ambitions to increase” the number of students on free school meals (FSM) to 40 per cent but concedes it “is a hard thing to do” because many of the students it wants to reach don’t achieve the level of grades necessary for entry to further their studies.

“Being disadvantaged is a disadvantage, and not many students from disadvantaged backgrounds reach that level [required for entry] at 16,” he explains.

Those who do reach the threshold for entry tend to stick with education. The most recent destinations data for the college’s 2017 cohort reports that 79 per cent of its disadvantaged pupils have continued their studies at university.

Eton as a partner school

It’s a similar picture at The London Academy of Excellence (LAE). Located close to the Olympic village in Stratford, LAE has Eton as a partner school and, with a focus on attracting disadvantaged pupils in a similar way to Harris Westminster, around 40 per cent of its cohort are FSM pupils.

Headteacher Alex Crossman says this figure tells just part of the story. In reality, he says, more students should be classed as disadvantaged and that a “better measure” would be to look at the destinations of students.

“Around 65 per cent of our students who take up university places at Russell Group or equivalent establishments are the first in their family to go to university,” he explains. “And when looking at Oxbridge, 50 per cent of our young people going on to study at Oxford or Cambridge are the first in their families to study at university level.”

According to the Higher Education Policy Institute report, First in Family Students, nationally, only 21 per cent of those who are the first in their family to go on to higher education do so at a Russell Group university. 

This is presumably what the Levelling Up paper means when it says it wants the new establishments to have a track record of progression to “leading universities”.

But if other colleges selected at entry point, would they not achieve similar outcomes? How far do these colleges simply take pupils who would achieve these outcomes at other institutions anyway? 

This is a point Crossman says he is “not insensitive” to. But he believes that at his school, it’s not just a case of supporting these pupils academically but also through proactive engagement with them on aspects such as careers advice and “peer support”, and it is these aspects that help to get the best out of the students.

“Young people who come here in large numbers will very often be the ‘good’ kids who worked hard and made good choices,” he says. “In their secondary schools, they weren’t always able to seek help from their peers because they themselves were the best in the room, [but] our students comment on how helpful their peers are to their educational experience.”

It’s not just uncertainty about how much additional impact these colleges actually have on pupil outcomes that has sparked debate, though. It’s also how far the success of the two colleges mentioned in the report is scaleable elsewhere in the country.

Carl Cullinane is director of research and policy at the Sutton Trust, and co-investigator of the Covid Social Mobility and Opportunities Study. He says the success of these colleges must be seen with the context of the “unique set of circumstances in London” in which they operate.

“In London, we find high levels of FSM students but also that there is a lower socio-economic attainment gap,” he explains. “There are high numbers of high-attaining pupils from ethnic minority groups, and this profile is much rarer in other parts of the country.”

Given this, Cullinane is cautious that a like-for-like model would work in the 55 education investment areas because there is not the same pool of disadvantaged pupils in each area. Some schools “could end up with intakes that are more socio-economically exclusive”, he says.

Essentially, the mistake being made, says Cullinane, is believing that all disadvantage is the same.

He also says the new colleges may be targeted by those with the most resources.

“With any institution, if they are successful, then they become attractive and in high demand, and then the more socially exclusive they will become,” he explains.

“Parents will do all they can, and some have more resources than others: tutoring support, equipment, travel. Parents with the resources will be able to provide extra support to get access.”

The result, says Cullinane, is that we will “raise the stakes for GCSE exams and add to the education arms race that already exists”.

In short, the argument is that for all the talk of prioritising disadvantaged children, it may still end up being a small, selective group that accesses these new high-level sixth forms and only a tiny portion of truly disadvantage pupils will get a look in.

This is a misgiving that Russell Hobby, chief executive of Teach First, has, too: “The real concern is how will disadvantaged pupils access these institutions?” he says. “If you’re from a disadvantaged background, you’re far less likely to get into a selective school.”

He likens it to the grammar-school model under a new name: “Looking at grammar schools, we don’t see great evidence that they are a social mobility accelerator for many of the young people in those areas and one would be concerned that it would be the same situation for post-16.”

‘Selection benefits those who are already advantaged’

It is also a concern for Comprehensive Future, a pressure group that campaigns to end the 11-plus exam. Dr Nuala Burgess, chair of Comprehensive Future, says it is inevitable that these free schools will end up serving more advantaged families than disadvantaged.

“Selection at any age ends up benefiting only those who are already high achieving and advantaged,” she argues. “There are exactly the same problems with selective sixth forms as there are with grammar schools: intakes with disproportionately low numbers of disadvantaged pupils and disruption to the pupil population of surrounding schools.”

Burgess makes the point that there is no evidence that results are any better in selective schools.

She says there is no “magic” to these “elite” sixth forms. “If you select high-performing students, you inevitably get results which reflect that.”

The grammar school research is certainly interesting in the context of the new sixth-form plans. For example, in one study by Durham University that looked at more than 500,000 pupils in England, researchers found that “results from grammar schools are no better than expected”.

The writers concluded that there is “little or no substantive difference between the effectiveness of any types of schools within a national school system”.

What’s more, when it comes to who uses grammar schools, research for the UCL Social Research Institute found that access to grammars is highly skewed by a child’s socio-economic status.

The paper said most deprived families living in grammar-school areas stand only a 6 per cent chance of attending a selective school, whereas the 1 per cent most affluent have an 80 per cent chance of attending a grammar.

Hobby has an additional concern: the impact on other schools. He makes the point that bringing in new selective sixth forms could work against other schools in the area, as “schools around selective schools don’t perform as well because they’re a bit less comprehensive as a result of [the selective school].”

In short - with fewer high-achieving pupils arriving, the other secondary cohorts’ averages are pulled down and they end up looking worse by comparison.

If this occurred, it could also have a major impact on existing sixth forms by taking students away, thereby reducing the funding they receive from government and potentially putting them in a perilous financial position.

“Because of the way they’re funded, they teeter on the edge of viability, so we need to be really careful about the knock-on effects of opening selective 16-19 schools,”  says Hobby.

Tom Richmond, founder and director of EDSK, an independent education think tank, also raises this as an issue with the plan.

“The existing research on selective schools is clear that having a new sixth form ‘top slice’ the most academically minded students will mean that other local providers are likely to see their performance drop,” he explains.

As such, he says, the selective sixth form proposal is a “curious approach” to “levelling up” and notes that, as well as all the prior concerns, other research tells us that selective settings “often recruit students from well outside the area in which they are based” and will be a dead end for levelling-up promises.

This is “another reason why super-selective sixth forms will do little or nothing to promote ‘levelling up’ in the towns and cities where they are situated”, he adds.

Handscombe, at Harris Westminster, acknowledges that being based in London, with its large pupil population, means this is not a concern he faces - but others might: “We’re not stealing anyone’s thunder. We’re offering opportunities to students who don’t have them. You need a big enough pool so you’re not taking other schools’ brightest sixth-form students.”

Despite all these concerns, the plan for EIAs and selective sixth forms does have its supporters. And that includes many schools groups.

For example, since the White Paper was released, Star Academies and Eton College have announced a bid to open three academic sixth-form free schools in Dudley, Middlesbrough and Oldham - three of the new 55 EIAs.

Oldham was chosen because the partnership said there are a lack of options available to students, with the partnership claiming that while a third of young people achieve five good passes at GCSE, fewer than 10 per cent of students achieve the A-level grades needed to attend a top-third UK university.

Star Academies chief executive Sir Hamid Patel CBE says building more sixth forms would help to address this: “They will become anchor institutions that make a significant contribution by playing a leading role in addressing skills shortages and helping to drive up standards in education.”

However, James Kewin, deputy chief executive for the Sixth Form Colleges Association, questions this - arguing that existing institutions like Oldham Sixth Form College have already been “successfully helping disadvantaged students progress to university, including the most selective institutions, for decades”.

“Not only is the college’s destinations data well above the national average, but its value added destinations performance (the DfE measure used to gauge progress to university based on the GCSE results of students) is better than that of the flagship school in the academy trust planning to open a new sixth form in Oldham,” he adds.

Given this then he says the idea that more selective sixth forms in the area are required seems counterintuitive.

“Establishing a highly selective institution to cater for a tiny number of students is a questionable approach to improving quality in any area, but doing so in a town that is well served by a large institution that helps students from across the ability range to overachieve based on their GCSE results makes even less sense.”

It seems then that those already in the city and serving the population may not be too thrilled by a newcomer entering their area if it goes ahead.

Sir Hamid, though, is keen to note that the plan for the admissions criteria is to try and ensure the new college is a suitable destination for all - not just those that are more advantaged.

“Should our bids be successful, the new colleges will be 16-19 colleges with specific criteria for admission - just like the majority of 16-19 colleges and sixth forms in the country,” he says.

“We are working with the UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities to design an admissions policy that will seek to identify young people from disadvantaged areas who have the potential to thrive within an academic and intensive post-16 curriculum.”

Focusing on admissions seems sensible, as it is something that Chris Jennings, principal of the Sir Isaac Newton Free School - the other selective sixth form cited by the government - says is fundamental to his school’s success.

“If you’re trying to drive social change and work with disadvantaged students, then colleges in disadvantaged areas have to [accept a mixed intake], otherwise, you’re not allowing students access to study when they’ve got the potential to do well,” says Jennings.

He adds: “Our school has a perception of being ‘elite’ but the truth is, we have an equal mixture of prior attainment - a third averages 5/6, another third averages 6/7 and the last third averages 7+.”

Sir Isaac Newton Free School is also working with the nearby Great Yarmouth Academy (GYA) to help it open a new sixth-form college provision in Great Yarmouth, countering the narrative that these sixth forms compete with local provision rather than help them.

Gareth Stevens, chief executive of Inspiration Trust, which operates both settings, said the rationale was to ensure there was the right level of choice for students in the area to help them achieve.

“For us, this is all about giving those children the opportunity to get into the very best universities and apprenticeships,” he says. “We believe so passionately in this work that, as a trust, we are self-funding the capital costs of the new sixth form.”

Jennings admits this will bring an “element of competition” to his setting but he believes it will widen choice without harming the other schools’ outcomes: “Sixth forms in Norfolk tend to be able to look past the competitive aspect and are able to meet and work together quite effectively.”

Sir Isaac Newton also challenges the narrative that the model only works in London: more students are sent to university from the school than both the local authority average and the national one. The latest data for disadvantaged students tells us that, in 2016, 50 per cent of disadvantaged pupils at Sir Isaac Newton went on to study at a “top third” university, compared with 21 per cent nationally.

EIAs ‘skewed towards the North’

It’s worth noting, at this point, that the EIAs and their selective sixth forms are actually skewed in terms of implementation to the North of England. Of particular focus is the North East.

Andy Byers, headteacher of Framwellgate School in Durham, and elected board member of Schools North East, is not too pleased by what this implies about schools in these regions.

“Bringing in ‘top’ schools from outside the region suggests a lack of trust in the schools, leaders and teachers which are already thriving in the North,” he says. “Many of these schools [in the North East] achieve outstanding results and their students progress to the top universities.”

Byers also has concerns that opening up a more selective system in the North East might look like it has had an impact on student outcomes but it will actually ignore where investment in disadvantage in education should be targeted.

“If you have high GCSE entry requirements, you’ll probably have higher A-level attainment and more students likely to achieve the Oxbridge entry requirements,” he says. “[But] what you would want to see is schools taking students with lower attainment at GCSE due, in part, to disadvantage and turning this around at A level.”

Luke Sibieta, an education specialist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, says this is a valid point. He believes there is “increasingly strong evidence” that targeting extra funding and resources to pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, such as through tutoring and improved teacher retention, can help “improve outcomes and narrow inequalities in the long run”.

The evidence he mentions comes from a review by the National Bureau of Economic Research, titled The Impressive Effects of Tutoring on PreK-12 Learning: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Experimental Evidence.

Furthermore, he says, policies to tackle disadvantage also need to recognise the difference between pupils in this group rather than treating them as a single entity.

“There is growing evidence that pupils experiencing persistent disadvantage (ie, on FSM year in, year out) see the lowest levels of attainment,” he explains. “As such, there is a good case for targeting extra resources at these pupils.”

To do this, he says that instead of creating a policy where the focus is on selective schools, it should be on the disadvantaged, providing “small-group or one-to-one tuition for pupils who have fallen behind, or ways to improve teacher quality, for example using salary incentives, good training and support.”

The government can point to plans to improve retention, too. But, given how widespread retention issues are in education, whether enough is being done here remains contentious.

So, where does this leave us? The model for these sixth forms is clear in the examples cited, so we can be pretty sure what the new institutions will look like. But for many, the selective sixth-form model needs to do a lot of work to prove it can be genuinely effective.

“I believe there is good intention and belief - I don’t think it’s disingenuous. We see the success stories but we don’t hear from those who were left behind,” says Hobby.

He suggests that perhaps “survivorship bias” is at play. We hear the stories shared by those who get into these institutions and do well, but that’s not the full picture.

“The existence of these institutions means they make things a little bit worse for those who don’t get in, but these people aren’t as visible as those who do. And more don’t get to go than do.”

Yet for those at Star Academies, Eton, Harris Westminster and Sir Isaac Newton Sixth Form Free School, there is a belief that this is a model that works - and their data on onward study outcomes of disadvantaged students gives this credence.

As such, Jennings, at Sir Isaac Newton, says it is incumbent on any new settings to ensure they are driven by this metric, which, after all, is what the government’s whole initiative is supposed to be about.

“The success of the new 16-19 free schools will depend on how effectively they increase social mobility. If its selection policy is not helping to achieve that, then you would have to question its value. Conversely, if it is, I think it’s worth pursuing.”