With the general election now less than a fortnight away, the Education Policy Institute has undertaken detailed analysis of how each of the three main parties are approaching some of the crucial challenges facing education in our country.

Top of the list of priorities is, of course, funding. For several months (at least), schools have been vocal about the funding pressures they face as a result of inflation, increases to pension costs and an inability to retain good teachers because of workload and uncompetitive pay. This has been aggravated by proposals to introduce a new national funding formula - under which many schools would lose funding, while gaining schools look unlikely to gain as much as they might have hoped. Both Labour and the Lib Dems have a more generous funding offer to schools, including the removal of the 1% pay cap which could help to improve teacher recruitment and, crucially, retention. But while the funding pledges of both parties are considerably larger than that of the Conservatives, they also rely on the ability to raise taxes which isn’t without risk.

Importantly, all three parties have pledged to introduce a “no losers” national funding formula. The commitment to introduce a new formula is welcome - the funding system needs transparency and consistency - but the final formulation will be critical and a test of how far the new government balances the needs of disadvantaged pupils with the rest.

And what can we deduce from how each party proposes to address the needs of disadvantaged children?

Labour commits to “invest in measures to close the attainment gap” but doesn’t give further details. They make a significant funding pledge to the early years which, in principle, is positive but, in practice, looks under-funded and prioritises universal entitlements over targeted interventions for poor children.

The Liberal Democrats also have an ambitious early years offer and commit to a more targeted policy of trebling the Early Years Pupil Premium. A priority here is to develop a detailed understanding of what actually works in improving outcomes in the early years.

Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats promise specific strategies to support children with special educational needs or disabilities. Extra support for these children is vital, given their generally poor attainment outcomes, and so these commitments are likely to be welcome by schools and parents alike.

The Conservative manifesto, however, makes no mention of children with SEND and so it is unclear whether or what plans the party has to support this vulnerable group.

The Conservatives do, however, pledge their support to children from ”ordinary working families”. Under the Conservative’s own definition, these children have above average attainment and are more likely to attend an outstanding school than their disadvantaged peers. It is therefore unclear why the Party seems to be prioritising this cohort of pupils above the 25 per cent of pupils who are both economically poor and have far lower attainment outcomes.

There is, however, cross-party consensus on the need to provide mental health support for young people in schools. We welcome this - our research last year found that almost a quarter of young people with mental health conditions were being turned away from specialist services and called for joined up early intervention services, particularly in schools. But these commitments must be properly funded and delivered by trained professionals. All three parties need to be clearer on this.

The Conservatives have confirmed that they will remove the ban on selective schools but without giving details of how many or where they would be located. As our research found, the attainment benefits for those who attend grammar schools come at a penalty to those who miss out - disproportionately those from poorer backgrounds.

There is otherwise very little from the three parties on structural reform. Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats say they’ll give greater powers back to local authorities but neither rule out the prospect of more academies (although Labour do rule out the creation of more free schools). Our evidence finds that there is no silver bullet in terms of accountability structures - there are good and bad providers in both multi-academy trusts and LAs alike. The debate may well need to move on from structural reform, but there still needs to be clarity and consistency when it comes to accountability.

Finally, it is positive that the Conservatives have pledged to review schools’ admissions policies. Fairer admissions could remove the postcode lottery of school places but it is rather pre-emptive that the party has ruled out a lottery from the outset.

Natalie Perera is executive director and head of research at the Education Policy Institute. She tweets at @natalieperera1

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