Sector Leaders Call for Change

As we released Report Card 2022: Achieving a fair education in England on the tenth anniversary of the Impact Goals, we asked leaders from across society who have been instrumental in working to tackle educational inequality to reflect on our journey over the last decade and the challenge that lies before us. They agreed that fundamental change is urgently needed. Here’s what they had to say.

“The FEA is a vital champion in tackling disadvantage and inequality in education. Sadly, any small gains in closing the advantage gaps have been lost during the pandemic. We’ve the limits of a “no excuses” approach: child poverty creates multiple barriers to schooling.” Lord Jim Knight, former Minister of State for Schools

“Headteachers have worked tirelessly over the past decade to address the disadvantage gap, using best practice from other schools and using evidence based research from organisations like The Education Endowment Fund.   However chronic under-funding of schools, layered with the pandemic in 2020 has meant that the disadvantage gap has widened for many students.

Understanding that post pandemic recovery is not limited to just one  year and the recognition that it will take many years to ensure the gap significantly narrows which will of course require significant funding and resourcing is the only way we will be able to address this.

The Fair Education Alliance is well placed to build on the best practice it has already started, particularly highlighting the link between good mental health and academic outcomes” Evelyn Forde MBE, Head Teacher, Copthall School, and ASCL President 2022-2023

“With the COVID pandemic physically and mentally impacting the whole world, including education having to be done online, the FEA have played their part and are vital in getting the perspective of young people that were the most affected and how their lives have changed. This enables the FEA to raise awareness of these issues, drawing attention from other organisations to collectively come together and discuss solutions to fix the problem too many young students have faced. 

Young people should become partners to share their experiences explaining every little detail that can ultimately help more in the future. With the recent pandemic, they can offer their perspective and opinions on what they thought about Covid and how severely it affected them.” Anees, FEA Youth Steering Group member

“Schools are relentlessly focused on narrowing the disadvantage gap, and there has been some progress over the past decade. However, they are chronically under-resourced by government with school funding falling in real-terms by 9%, according to the respected IFS think-tank, and long-running problems with teacher recruitment and retention. This is compounded by inspections and performance tables which often penalise schools in the most disadvantaged areas and make matters worse. As a result, the rate of progress in closing the disadvantage gap is too slow. 

“Disadvantaged children are already 4.6 months of learning behind their peers when they start primary school and the gap then widens through childhood and adolescence. What is needed is investment in early years education, support for struggling schools, sufficient resources to afford support for children who are falling behind and those with special educational needs, a strategy to improve teacher recruitment and retention, and reforms to inspections and performance tables to make the system more supportive. Instead, sharply rising costs and a lack of government funding to afford those costs will mean more cuts.” Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders

“In the early part of the decade leading up to 2020, the disadvantage gap was closing for both primary and secondary pupils. In the latter part of the decade, progress in closing the gap slowed down and then stalled completely. There are a number of plausible reasons why we are no longer making progress; child poverty has increased; funding for wider children’s services has decreased; and, between 2010 and 2020, school funding was cut by 9% per pupil in real terms. 

We cannot expect schools to fix this alone. They play a crucial role, but that role must fit within a coherent ecosystem that includes early years and early intervention, mental health services, youth services and a welfare system that is fair. 

By bringing together the voices of the sector, along with employers and businesses, the Fair Education Alliance is creating a unified force for collaboration and, crucially, for change.” Natalie Perera, Chief Executive, Education Policy Institute; FEA Trustee

“Looking back over the last ten years, our progress as a nation in narrowing the gap has been disappointing. But it is clear that it can be done. We have seen individual schools and groups of schools do it, even in the most difficult circumstances. Our challenge as a country is how we make success systemic. This requires funding. It requires stability. It requires space to experiment. And we cannot leave it to schools alone – they must be surrounded by the services and support that makes their work possible, from social care to CAMHS to health services to careers advice and beyond into housing, infrastructure and economic opportunity. The FEA plays a critical role at this system level. They join the dots, align activity, amplify voices and share what works. They help make individual efforts add up into something greater than the sum of their parts.” Russell Hobby, Chief Executive, Teach First; FEA Trustee

“Despite the incredible efforts of our school leaders and staff, and some progress with some groups of pupils, we have been unable to turn to dial on closing achievement gaps in our school system. 

This is an endemic problem. It calls for radical solutions.

First, as well as increased funding for schools, children’s and youth services, we need radical redistribution of those resources. Second, we need to consider radical changes to school admissions so that schools are incentivised to desegregate intakes, accept the most vulnerable children, and wherever possible avoid formal and informal forms of exclusion. Third, we need a radical redesign so that our system is built on the assumption that almost every child will, at some point in their young lives, need some kind of additional academic or pastoral support beyond anything a teacher or a standard lesson can offer. 

Finally, we need a decade of radical, deep and hard-edged collaboration between all schools, charities, businesses and policymakers who are committed to a fundamentally fairer education.  Going forward The FEA’s role as broker, convenor and advocate for these collaborations will become even more crucial.” Joe Hallgarten, Chief Executive, Centre for Education and Youth

“The last two years of Covid and school closures have had a very damaging effect on the attainment gap between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers, eradicating what little progress had been made over the last decade. The FEA plays a key role in keeping attention focused on this crucial issue and galvanising a collaboration of stakeholders with a wealth of diverse perspectives, expertise and experience to explore how best to deliver a fairer education for every child.” Carole Willis, FAcSS, Chief Executive, National Foundation of Educational Research

Addressing the disadvantage gap can feel like fighting the tide: inequalities are deep-rooted, macro events like the pandemic can quickly undo hard-won progress, and better-off parents, quite naturally, are doing more and more to cement their children’s advantage.  But the scale of the challenge does not mean we should ever excuse the gap or relent on our efforts to close it. 

One of the most significant developments of the last decade has been the blossoming of a diverse and vibrant community of organisations that share a mission to tackle educational inequality. Never has there been more high quality, evidence-based activity from the non-profit, education and corporate sectors – and never has the need to coordinate our efforts and share good practice been more acute. The FEA must continue to be that guiding light for all of us passionate about ensuring no child’s success is limited by their socioeconomic background.” James Turner, Chief Executive, HG Foundation

“When we first developed the Fair Education Alliance goals, with input from over 1,000 stakeholders, we couldn’t have imagined the decade we were embarking on. Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and the recent cost of living crisis have created big shocks across society and our education system has seen massive change. We have not made nearly enough progress but there is cause for optimism. We know a lot more than we did in 2012 about what works in education, there is a thirst for meaningful collaboration and young people want to lead change in education. The Fair Education Alliance is perfectly positioned to bring together leading organisations alongside young people who can focus on long-term solutions that get to the root cause of the problem. We must double up our collective efforts and work with young people as equal partners to transform educational outcomes for pupils from low-income backgrounds.” Dr Rania Marandos, National Director, Foundation for Educational Development

“The large cross-country differences in the socio-economic attainment gap show that poverty need not be destiny. The Fair Alliance’s report card is a powerful tool to help lower the political cost of action, by showing where and how attainment gaps are being closed, and at the same time increase the political cost of inaction, by pointing to insufficient and inexcusable progress towards helping all children reach their full potential.” Andreas Schleicher, Director for Education and Skills, OECD

“After many years of debate about structure, excellent teaching was recognised as the surest path to ensuring fair access to high quality education and was central to the steady closing of the progress gaps at all levels. The main challenge (apart from the devastation wrought by Covid, disproportionately affecting the least advantaged) has been the recruitment, training and retention of excellent teachers.

Going forward, we must recognise the importance, highlighted by lockdown, of understanding a young person’s home context and general level of well-being. We must provide systematically for the careful preparation of each student in his/her transition from one phase to the next to prevent the lagging behind of the least advantaged. The strength of the FEA is its power to convene committed participants from all phases and sectors, including all children’s services, to share information and good practice designed to give every young person the basis for leading a great life.” Richard Hardie, Chair of UBS UK Donor-advised Foundation and UBS UK pension scheme; FEA Trustee

“As a school leader working in a challenging context with high amounts of disadvantage, some progress has been made in transforming the lives of our most disadvantaged and consequently, post Covid these inequalities appear to have widened. The work of the Fair Education Alliance continues to spotlight this issue and I hope the Department for Education devises a further strategy that supports great attendance, positive behaviours and support for mental health. Once this has been resolved I am sure our disadvantaged students will fly." Jason Ashley, Head Teacher, Redbridge Community School 

“Finding out what reduces educational inequality, then sharing and promoting it has been the shared vision and passion of the Fair Education Alliance and UBS since the beginning of our partnership. Sadly, the last few years have seen a reversal to previous advances in reducing such inequality, and the headwinds faced by disadvantaged young people in the education system are now blowing stronger than ever. We will need to redouble our efforts to find what works, what more can be done, what innovations and effective practices exist within the Alliance and beyond, and what policies and practices will make a difference. The price of not doing so is too high, representing not just a fundamental injustice, but also a tragic waste of potential, to the UK economy, but most poignantly and immediately to individual lives.” Nick Wright, UBS UK Social Impact and Philanthropy