The prime minister has been issued a “wake-up call” over the feasibility of his maths-to-18 ambition after new data revealed that younger pupils are still behind with numeracy skills after the Covid-19 pandemic.
An expert from the Education Policy Institute (EPI), speaking as the think tank published new data on pupil learning loss recovery following the pandemic, warned that the government focus on education recovery was “waning” at a time when it was clear there “is still much work to be done”.
The report, published today, estimates that outcomes in primary maths have still not recovered to pre-pandemic levels, with the findings revealing a learning loss of almost 1.5 months by the end of the autumn term 2022-23 for pupils in Years 5 and 6.
The findings form the first in a series of reports by EPI and Renaissance set to be published over the coming year.
The think tank said that today’s findings chime with the national results for last year’s key stage 2 Sats, when the proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in maths was the lowest since 2016.
The maths to18 plan was questioned by education figures when it was announced in January because of the shortage of maths teachers that schools are already facing.
Speaking to Tes, Jon Andrews, head of analysis and director for school system and performance at EPI, said he felt that focus on education recovery was slipping.
He said: “If schools don’t get the support they need for catch-up, it will be a long time before we get back to those pre-pandemic levels.”
And on the prime minister’s maths ambition, he said that with the concerns around the pandemic effect on younger pupils, just focusing on maths for 16- to 18-year-olds “isn’t good”.
Commenting ahead of the publication of the report, Mr Andrews said: “The prime minister has set out a bold ambition for all young people to study maths up to age 18. There are many obstacles to meeting that ambition, and this analysis highlights that among them is the fact that younger children have fallen behind in their maths as a result of the pandemic.
“There is a risk that government focus on education recovery is waning and this analysis is a wake-up call that there is still much work to be done.”
Today’s analysis by EPI used Renaissance’s Star reading and Star maths assessments to interrogate the impact of the pandemic on pupils’ school attainment.
It revealed that while the socio-economic gap has narrowed since its pandemic peak of 13 months ago, the gap in outcomes in reading between primary schools with high and low levels of disadvantage is still equivalent to just under 12.3 months of learning.
EPI estimates that the outcome gap has grown by about 6 per cent since the beginning of the pandemic.
Meanwhile in reading, the report found that average outcomes in the subject have recovered for most year groups, in parallel with KS2 Sats results in 2022.
While EPI says it was difficult to estimate learning loss among younger year groups, it hopes that future reports will be able to investigate these pupils further.
And later reports will also provide further detailed estimates of learning loss and recovery, including regional breakdowns, with the aim of enhancing policymakers’ and educators’ understanding of the impacts on pupils over recent years, so that future support can be targeted where it is most needed.
Julie McCulloch, director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders, said the findings “further highlight how lacking the government’s education recovery programme has been in offering the level of support required for pupils to catch up on what they have missed”.
Ms McCulloch said that the government had “failed to invest enough money into education recovery” and added that the National Tutoring Programme - one of the government’s catch-up strategies - was “deeply flawed”.
“With maths outcomes for primary school pupils still below pre-pandemic levels, and a major shortage of teachers threatening maths standards in secondary schools, it is remarkable that the prime minister has chosen to focus his attention on a misguided plan to extend the teaching of maths for all pupils to 18.
“His priority should be to fix the problems that currently exist by ensuring that schools have the funding and teachers they need.”
