Ministers must do more to combat regional inequalities after GCSE results showed a stark divide in the proportion of top grades achieved in different areas of England, heads and education sector experts have urged.
GCSE results data, published today, shows the attainment gap in the proportion of exam entries achieving top grades between regions in the North and South of England has widened since exams were last held before the Covid pandemic.
A leading headteacher has said this should be a warning for the government to “stop talking” and “actually do some levelling up”.
More on GCSE results 2022:
Education leaders in the North East of England have also called for an urgent and “properly thought-through and resourced ‘recovery’ plan” to help bridge the divide.
The gap between the North East and Yorkshire and the Humber, which both received the lowest proportion of GCSE grades at 7/A or above out of all the regions (22.4 per cent), and London, which received the highest proportion (32.6 per cent), was 10.2 percentage points this year.
The figures revealed there has been a 9.3 percentage-point widening of the attainment gap between the highest- and lowest-performing regions since GCSE exams were last held in 2019.
The North East and Yorkshire and the Humber recorded the highest Covid absence rates across Years 10 and 11 at state schools this year, with rates over 14 per cent, according to FFT Education Datalab analysis.
Reacting to the results this morning, Andy Byers, headteacher at Framwellgate School in Durham, said that the regional disparity in GCSE grades was “concerning”.
“It’s partly about Covid and it’s partly about deprivation - which are linked in a way. When kids were remote learning at middle-class schools in middle-class areas, they could comfortably work at home, whereas students in other areas maybe could not.
“The outcomes today are proof that levelling up has not had the impact the government wanted. My message to the DfE is: stop talking about levelling up, and actually do some levelling up.”
Similarly, Julia Polley, headteacher of The Wensleydale School in North Yorkshire, said: ”Not all northern schools have the same access to opportunities as many southern schools and they are dealing with this disadvantage on top of the challenges unique to them.
“For example, as a rural school, small shifts in our year group numbers impact us greatly and also affect funding. There is an opportunity for the government to respond to these results. Levelling up won’t work unless the disparity in educational opportunities is addressed.”
And Jonny Uttley, chief executive of the Education Alliance Trust, which runs schools in Hull and Yorkshire, said the regional gap was a “cause for concern”.
He added that the divide was a combination of “underlying factors in the system” and the effect of Covid.
“There is no substitute for being in school, so high instances of Covid certainly exacerbated the existing factors,” he added.
NTP ‘an unmitigated disaster’
Chris Zarraga, director of regional schools network Schools North East, said the results reflected the “disproportionate” effect the pandemic has had on the North East region and the “exacerbation of serious perennial issues, especially that of long-term deprivation”.
He added: “Schools urgently need a properly thought-through and resourced ‘recovery’ plan that recognises the regional contexts schools operate in, with a long-term view of education and a curriculum that is appropriate and accessible to all students and schools.”
Speaking on the World at One radio programme earlier today, Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, agreed that the pandemic and remote learning and increased regional inequality.
He said: “You saw lots of children on free school meals unable to learn remotely without laptops because the DfE scheme was very slow in getting off the ground.
“You’ve had real issues with the National Tutoring Programme not being delivered effectively despite the great work of a number of charities helping to deliver it - the DfE’s administration of that and the people put in charge of it in the second year has been an unmitigated disaster”.
School leaders in the North East have previously told Tes of the lack of pre-existing tutoring infrastructure in the region, which meant it was difficult for schools to engage with the National Tutoring Programme - the government’s flagship catch-up scheme - particularly in its first year.
Responding to questions about the regional divide, schools minister Will Quince said closing the attainment gap was a “huge priority” for the government.
He told Times Radio: “It is my mission as schools minister to ensure that wherever you live in our country, you have that same level of opportunity.”
Leaders: ‘Don’t compare schools’
Meanwhile, Conservative leadership candidate and former chancellor Rishi Sunak said: “You have to remember that a lot of things have happened to our kids over the last couple of years. That has disrupted their learning and that’s why we need to urgently address those.
“One of the things I did as chancellor was to provide funding for a tutoring programme to provide extra help to disadvantaged children to help them catch up on the learning that they have lost”.
School leaders have also warned against comparisons being made between schools because of the varying impact the pandemic has had on different pupils.
Speaking on this topic, Mr Byers said: “I’ve seen some schools today publishing their results and publicising them. We certainly won’t do that.
“The message is: we’re celebrating individual successes and we will analyse our data, but it’s difficult to draw anything from it because of the different impact of the pandemic on different students”.
Similarly, Lisa Walton, deputy chief executive of the East Midlands Education Trust, said: “Our whole approach this year is getting pupils on to the next stage of their education. We are not engaging with the Twitter dialogue of promoting our results.”
‘Stark academic divides’
As with A-level results last week, private school students recorded a larger year-on-year drop in top GCSE grades this results day compared with state schools.
But experts have still pointed to a divide in the proportion of top grades received from those in the state sector and those in the independent sector.
Lee Elliot Major, professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter, said the results “reveal the stark academic divides that define our school system”, with GCSE entries from independent schools still twice as likely to be graded 7/A and above than entries from state academies.
He added: “We have to ask ourselves whether an academic system that leaves over a third of pupils failing to reach a standard pass in maths, and just under three in 10 pupils failing a standard pass in English, is adequately serving our children and society. After 12 years of schooling, a third of pupils are lacking the basic levels of literacy and number skills need to function and flourish in life.”
Some school leaders pointed out that early data indicated a possible widening of the gap between less advantaged pupils and more advantaged pupils.
Ms Walton said of her trust’s results: “The results are broadly in line with what we expected and an improvement on 2019, but there is some evidence - not in all cases but in some - that the gap between pupil premium and non-pupil premium pupils has widened.
“Having said that, in one of our schools where there is a high proportion of pupil premium pupils, they appear to have narrowed the gap - so it’s a mixed picture.”
