Last week I met with a group of Year 9 students at the school where I’m chair of governors, and I asked the question every adult asks a child, usually met with varying degrees of irritation: “What do you want to do when you grow up?”
One wanted to be a nurse, another a web designer. Every one of them had an ambition. And for each one, their education will be vital in helping them to fulfil it.
As teachers and school leaders, you want each pupil to have the opportunity to fulfil their ambition. But you also know that not every child gets that opportunity.
Research by Ambition School Leadership - the new charity that I’m privileged to lead - shows that persistently disadvantaged children (who have spent at least 80 per cent of their time in secondary eligible for free school meals) now make the least progress of all children in England.
The report, Ambitious for Every Child, is the first investigation of student progress in “opportunity areas”, identified by the government as areas of low social mobility. It assesses the gap in progress made between disadvantaged children in opportunity areas and non-disadvantaged children in schools elsewhere across England.
Data from 2015 shows that in opportunity areas, this group made, on average, 20.1 months less progress than their wealthier peers across England during the five years from key stage 2 to KS4. This progress gap has grown by 8.3 months since 2010.
When such inequality is so prevalent in our education system, a fair society is impossible
When such inequality is so prevalent in our education system, a fair society is impossible. Research also shows the schools that face the biggest challenges are the ones that struggle the most to get the leadership they need to tackle them.
The government is targeting £60 million of investment at opportunity areas over the coming years, and that is a good start - but without great school leaders at all levels in schools in the most challenging contexts, long-term change won’t happen.
Organisations like Ambition School Leadership need to attract and develop more talented leaders with the moral purpose, resilience and potential to make a real lasting impact in schools in our most disadvantaged areas.
And we need to change the discourse: school leadership is an incredible job with the unique potential to impact on the lives of hundreds or thousands of children, and we don’t talk about that enough.
Teachers and school leaders, we need you to step up. We need great school leaders more than ever. We need them at every level, in every school, but most of all in those areas that are most isolated and that face the most challenges.
These schools need leaders who have the self-awareness to know their areas for development, and the humility to ask for support.
They need leaders who believe that every child should have the opportunity to achieve their potential. Could this be you?
James Toop is CEO of Ambition School Leadership
