Each year, the Education Policy Institute reports on the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers.

This year our assessment is particularly timely as it benchmarks the state of inequalities the new government is inheriting.

Furthermore, 2023 is also the first year that GCSE and A-level grades have returned to “normal” based on pre-pandemic grade distributions.

Beset by inequalities

The reality is that our report finds an education system beset by inequalities.

Since 2019, disadvantaged pupils at the ages of 5, 11 and 16 have all fallen further behind their peers, while the gap in 16-19 education has stagnated. In primary and secondary, progress has gone backwards by one full month since 2019, with the disadvantage gap at its widest for both phases since 2011.

The early years phase has already been singled out as the new secretary of state’s “number one priority” and the picture here is particularly bleak.

Developmental gaps for children just starting school are widening across disadvantaged and vulnerable groups, and have reached the highest in our series for Reception-aged children with SEND.

We also find the disadvantage gap has widened post-pandemic in almost all regions across school phases and London continues to pull away from other regions as children progress through schooling.

Pre-pandemic origins

But while educational inequalities look very different from how they did in 2019, this isn’t a simple story of the pandemic’s long shadow. In many cases, progress in gap-narrowing had stalled - or gone into reverse - before 2019.

Our analysis at the time cautioned about the profound and harmful effects of more children growing up in long-term poverty, for whom the attainment gap is about twice as high as for those experiencing poverty more fleetingly.

The challenges facing policymakers are greater in many ways than at any point in the past decade. So where to start?

Plans afoot

The secretary of state has already acknowledged that it will take more than changes to children’s education and that we must address wider barriers to opportunity, such as child poverty, inadequate housing and mental health.

Our report makes several recommendations. Given the longstanding nature of these inequalities, not all are new, but it is an opportunity for the new government to adopt evidence-based policies with a fresh urgency.

First, it should publish an evidence-based strategy setting out how it will reduce the disadvantage gap post-pandemic and provide higher levels of funding for disadvantaged children, weighted more heavily towards the poorest.

This should include addressing the cliff edge in disadvantage funding that occurs at the point students turn 16 by introducing a 16-19 student premium akin to the pupil premium.

The research should also include a focus on the need for a greater understanding of the declining attainment of girls. In particular, whether this is related to the recent increases in poor mental health for teenage girls.

Second, with 30 per cent of all UK children in relative poverty, our repeated call for a cross-government child poverty strategy has never been more pressing and it is welcome that the new government has already committed to this.

We also recommend more effective support for children with special education needs and disabilities (SEND) - especially for younger children - another area where the government has acknowledged that the current system falls woefully short.

Third, the restructuring of SEND policy within the Department for Education signals the government’s aim to improve inclusion in mainstream schools for children with SEND.

Close the gaps

But structural changes are never silver bullets and the new government will need to go further and faster to address the inadequacies of the current SEND system.

That educational outcomes remain so correlated with disadvantage, SEND and where young people live highlights the scale and enduring nature of the challenge but also provides the new government with an opportunity for bold and evidence-based approaches to making a difference.

History tells us that it is possible to close these gaps. The new government must ensure that we do it again.

Emily Hunt is EPI associate director for social mobility and vulnerable learners

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