Many struggling schools will miss out on levelling-up support because of the “blunt” way it is being targeted, analysis shared with Tes suggests.
The government’s Levelling Up White Paper, published earlier this year, announced the creation of 55 Education Investment Areas (EIAs) to target “school improvement interventions” and support disadvantaged pupils.
The local authority areas identified have been chosen for extra intervention based on their scores at key stage 2 and GCSE in the three years before the Covid pandemic.
Under the government’s plans, these “cold spots” will receive a package of extra measures, including retention payments for teachers in the highest-priority subjects. They will also be will be prioritised as the locations for new specialist sixth-form free schools.
But research by data company SchoolDash suggests that the exact local authority that a school sits in is a “very poor” predictor of its need for support.
Analysis published by the site today finds that more than a third (34 per cent) of primary schools in areas not designated as EIAs had lower KS2 attainment levels than the average primary school within an EIA.
And, among secondary schools, for Attainment 8 and Progress 8, which measure students against their GCSE results, the figures were 38 per cent and 39 per cent respectively.
The research highlights a “fundamental problem” with the government’s plan, the Association of School and College Leaders has warned today.
The research draws on the example of an “outstanding” rated secondary school in Manchester, which is an EIA.
The school has a Progress 8 score of 1.14, meaning its GCSE pupils overperformed by more than one grade per subject.
Meanwhile, another secondary school less than two miles away in Stockport - which is not an EIA - is rated “inadequate” and has a Progress 8 score of -0.56.
The analysis concludes that overall, schools in EIAs need greater support on average, but that the variation in school performance within each local authority is much greater than the variation between different LAs.
A ‘very blunt tool’
Writing in a blog on the SchoolDash site, the organisation’s founder, Timo Hannay, said: “Educational disadvantage and underperformance often don’t conform to simple stereotypes and are certainly no respecters of administrative boundaries.”
He added: “Of course, this doesn’t mean that EIAs make no political sense: the levelling-up agenda is deeply rooted in voters’ sense of place, and when it comes to schools this might be reasonably equated to LAs.
“It is merely to point out that EIAs seem to be a very blunt tool. England’s geographical inequalities ultimately need to be addressed at the level of individual schools and even pupils.”
The findings chime with separate research looking at whether EIAs are in the right areas to help schools to hit a government target for 90 per cent of pupils to achieve the expected standard in reading, writing and maths at the end of KS2 by 2030.
Analysis completed by FFT Education Datalab, and seen by Tes, suggests that two-thirds of pupils missing the expected standard in all three assessment areas of reading, writing and maths at KS2 in 2019 went to school outside the 55 EIAs.
The 2019 results were the last set of data available, owing to Sats being cancelled in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic.
Within the EIAs, there were 72,289 pupils who did not achieve the expected standard in reading, writing and maths at KS2 in 2019, according to the analysis.
However, in areas outside the EIAs, there were 107,067 pupils who did not meet those standards three years ago.
‘More nuanced approach to deprivation’
Julie McCulloch, director of policy at ASCL, said that while the EIA idea was “positive”, there were “inevitably greatly varying levels of deprivation within the broad areas identified” by the scheme.
She added: “Our view is that the government needs to do two things. It needs to commit to adequately funding all schools and colleges, and it needs to invest time and energy into developing a more nuanced approach to disadvantage that identifies individual schools and pupils at greatest need of assistance and targets the appropriate support direct to them.”
Chris Parham, headteacher at St Issey Church of England Primary School in Cornwall, which is one of the EIAs, said local authorities had a range of deprivation across them.
He added: “If the government was serious about this plan, they’d allocate EIAs on either a ward or school level.”
A DfE spokesperson said: “We are directing support and funding to Education Investment Areas, because they are the parts of the country where outcomes in literacy and numeracy are the poorest. In these areas we will be focusing on schools that need our support the most.
“The recently published Schools White Paper also sets out significant support and plans for all schools across England, including our pledge that if any child falls behind in English or maths, they will receive timely and evidence-based support to help them to reach their potential.”
