The attainment gap for children receiving SEN support at the age of 5 was the highest on record, and children with significant special needs face some of the largest attainment gaps of all vulnerable groups, a new report has found.
Research by the Education Policy Institute (EPI) also warns there has been no progress over the last decade in tackling the attainment gap for children who are persistently disadvantaged.
The report is the first instalment of the EPI’s Annual Report on the state of education in England, focusing on the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers up to the end of secondary school. It is based on an analysis of test and exam results from 2022.
Emily Hunt, associate director for social mobility and vulnerable learners at the EPI, said that the research reveals “the stark inequalities” in schools, “years after the initial disruption of the pandemic”.
“It is particularly worrying to see these gaps widening even for the youngest children in Reception year, highlighting the critical role of out-of-school factors and supporting children during the earliest years of life,” she added.
On what the government should do in response to the findings, Ms Hunt said that they “must take bolder steps to tackle entrenched education inequalities”.
These should include a strategy to reduce the disadvantage gap, a cross-government child poverty strategy and higher levels of funding directed towards children experiencing persistent poverty, she said.
SEN support
The report identified that as well as their attainment gap being the highest on record, children receiving SEN support at age 5 were over a year behind their peers in attainment.
However, some progress has been made in narrowing the gap for older pupils receiving SEN support.
For pupils receiving SEN support at the age of 11 (key stage 2) and 16 (key stage 4), the attainment gap has narrowed since 2019 to 18.1 months and almost two years respectively in 2022. The gap among pupils aged 16 receiving SEN Support was almost six months smaller than in 2011.
Ms Hunt said a focus was needed on how to “improve the effectiveness of SEND [special educational needs and disabilities] provision and early identification”. This is particularly for the very youngest children, for whom there has been “no progress” in closing the gap in recent years.
In addition to better teacher training, reviewing the high-needs budget, ensuring access to other professionals, such as educational psychologists, and improving access to Camhs and NHS assessments.
The report also calls for a need for improved early identification of SEND in young children, which could take the form of a “thorough screening check” during the Reception year.
Pupils with EHCPs
The annual report reveals that those pupils with an education, health and care plan (EHCP) were nearly 2.5 years behind their peers by the end of primary school and nearly 3.5 years by the end of secondary.
Progress in closing these gaps has slowed - or gone backwards at KS2 - when compared with 2015.
By the end of secondary school, the EHCP gap was wider at secondary than at primary at almost three and a half years (40.7 months) in 2022.
But in contrast to earlier phases, this is a smaller gap than prior to the pandemic (at 41.1 months in 2019) and sustains its long-term downward trend, albeit at a slower rate of progress than during the earlier period 2011-2015.
Ethnicity
The attainment of white British pupils - the largest ethnic group - has also declined in comparison to other ethnic groups post-pandemic, the EPI found.
The report calls on the Department for Education to develop “an understanding” of why the attainment of some ethnic groups has been more negatively impacted by the pandemic, including looking at the roles of “poverty” and “pupil absence”, which are also known to vary by ethnicity.
Between 2019 and 2022, higher-attaining ethnic groups have generally moved away from white British pupils across education phases, while students from lower-attaining ethnic groups have narrowed the gap - besides white and black Caribbean pupils.
At the age of 5, Chinese, white Irish, white and Asian, and Indian pupils were ahead of white British pupils in 2022. Although just a gap of two months, this has widened since 2019.
By the end of primary school, Chinese pupils were 10.7 months ahead of white British pupils, and Indian pupils 8.8 months ahead.
By the end of secondary school, Chinese pupils were a full two years (24.1 months) ahead of white British pupils, while Gypsy Roma pupils were more than 2.5 years (31.4 months) behind.
Children in poverty
Ms Hunt says that it is clear that growing up in long-term poverty has a “particularly profound impact on educational outcomes”. The report shows that there has been no progress in narrowing gaps for persistently disadvantaged pupils in the last decade.
These pupils are one year (12.2 months) behind their non-disadvantaged peers by the end of primary school, almost two years behind non-advantaged students by the end of secondary school, and four months behind the wider group of all disadvantaged pupils by the time they take their GCSEs.
The report recommends that the DfE should ensure “persistently disadvantaged pupils can be easily identified by schools” - such as “including identifiers on the National Pupil Database” and making “centrally held data linking family income to pupil-level attainment” available.
The report also calls for a cross-government child poverty strategy to recognise how factors such as poverty, housing, healthcare and transport can form educational inequalities - adding that these “cannot be addressed by schools in isolation or even any one government department”.
‘Problems go deeper’
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “It is desperately dispiriting news that not only has the attainment gap widened, but there has been no progress over the past decade in tackling the gap for the most disadvantaged children.
“Clearly, the disruption caused by the pandemic has had a huge impact, and the government’s failure to back education recovery with sufficient investment has made it all the more difficult to regain lost ground. But the problems go deeper than that.
“Teacher shortages are critical, funding is impossibly tight, mental health problems are on the rise, the SEND system is under huge pressure, and buildings are literally crumbling.”
Ian Hartwright, head of policy at the NAHT school leaders’ union, said: “Vulnerable children and those from disadvantaged backgrounds have disproportionately suffered from funding cuts to schools and services over the last decade, and have been impacted harder by the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis.
“Schools already go to extraordinary lengths to support pupils, including those with SEND, but they cannot do this alone.
“The government refused to properly fund the Covid recovery plan proposed by its own education recovery tsar, failing the children and young people who need help the most.”
