EPI Annual Report finds education disadvantage gap has stopped closing, posing a major setback for social mobility

• For the first time since 2011, progress in closing the GCSE attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers has come to a standstill. Between 2017 and 2018, the gap widened slightly, by 0.2 months, to 18.1 months.
• This means that poorer pupils in England are, on average, a year and a half behind their peers by the time they finish their GCSEs. 
• There are large geographical variations – with a gap of over 2 years in some parts of the country and just 6 months in other areas. Disadvantage gaps are larger, and are growing, in parts of the North.
• Despite these trends at secondary level, the picture at primary level is more positive, with the disadvantage gap continuing to narrow. 
• Black Caribbean pupils have experienced particularly poor progress, falling further behind White British pupils. Pupils with special educational needs remain the furthest behind. 
• The most persistently disadvantaged pupils are almost 2 years (22.6 months) behind at the end of GCSEs – and that gap has increased since 2011.
• Post-16 education is becoming even more segregated, driven by an over-representation of disadvantaged students in further education. 
• Over recent years there has been a dramatic slowing down in the closure of the disadvantage gap. Given this and the rise in the gap in 2018, there is a real risk that we could be at a turning point, and that the progress made over recent years could be undone.

On Tuesday 30^th July, the Education Policy Institute (EPI), in partnership with the Fair Education Alliance (FEA), will publish its flagship Annual Report on the state of education in England. 

The new report examines the progress made in closing the gap in educational attainment between disadvantaged pupils and their peers, known as ‘the disadvantage gap’. 

The measure is a leading indicator of how the government is performing on social mobility. 

The research, which is based on the latest Department for Education data, also considers how the gap has changed since 2011 and how it varies across the country. It also looks at how pupils from different backgrounds perform, as well as the routes taken by students after taking their GCSEs. 

The report’s findings suggest that the new Prime Minister is likely to have a considerable challenge ahead of him if he is to make meaningful progress in closing the disadvantage gap, and in his words, improve support for those parts of the country that have been “left behind”.
 

Key findings

The education disadvantage gap in England: the latest trends

• The gap in GCSE attainment between disadvantaged pupils and non-disadvantaged pupils has stopped closing. 
• By the time they leave secondary school, disadvantaged pupils are now over 18.1 months behind non-disadvantaged pupils. This gap has increased slightly from last year, by 0.2 months.
• In the early years (pupils in reception year), the gap has also stopped closing – having widened slightly by 0.1 months to 4.5 months. 
• In contrast, at primary school, the gap continues to close. By the time they leave primary school, disadvantaged pupils are now 9.2 months behind their peers – a narrowing of 0.3 months since 2017. 
• For the most persistently disadvantaged pupils the gap has narrowed at primary level but widened at secondary level. This means that these pupils – the very worst-off – are almost two years (22.6 months) behind all other pupils by the time they finish their GCSEs. 
• Despite no progress in narrowing the disadvantage gap, overall pupil attainment has continued to rise. This suggests that an overall rise in standards does not guarantee a reduction in the disadvantage gap.   

How long until the GCSE disadvantage gap closes? 

• Over recent years, there has been a dramatic slowing down in the closure of the disadvantage gap to the extent that the five year rolling average now suggests that it would take 560 years to close the gap. However, the most recent data shows an increase in the gap in 2018 suggesting there is a real risk that we could be at a turning point and that we could soon enter a period where the gap starts to widen.

How does the disadvantage gap vary in different areas in England?

• Large disadvantage gaps remain well-established in several areas in England but are particularly acute in the North. In Rotherham and Blackpool, poorer pupils are trailing their peers by over two years by the time they finish their GCSEs, on average.
• London continues to dominate areas with the smallest disadvantage gaps. Poorer pupils are only 3.9 months behind their peers at GCSE in Westminster, and 5.3 months behind in Tower Hamlets. 
• Some areas have been highly successful at reducing levels of disadvantage in education since 2012. These include Bournemouth (reducing the GCSE gap by 6.5 months), Richmond upon Thames (5.8 months) and Waltham Forest (4.5 months). 
• Other areas, however, have regressed, with the gap having widened since 2012. This is especially apparent in the North West of England: in Bury, Halton and Wigan, the gap has increased by around 5 months over this period.

How are different pupil groups performing? 

• There are huge disparities between pupil groups, including by ethnicity. By the end of secondary school, Chinese and Indian pupils perform significantly better than their White British peers – moving ahead of them by 24.8 and 14.2 months respectively. 
• At the other end of the scale, Gypsy/Roma pupils are almost 3 years behind White British pupils (by 34.1 months) by the end of secondary. Travellers of Irish Heritage are 28.9 months behind, while for Black Caribbean pupils the figure is 9.3 months.  
• Black Caribbean pupils have experienced poor progress since 2011, having slipped a further 2.2 months behind White British pupils. In stark contrast, Pakistani pupils have made large gains on their White British peers, having been 3.4 months behind in 2011, but just 0.5 months behind in 2018.
• Pupils with special educational needs remain the furthest behind: 40 months by the end of secondary school for those with greater needs. The government should consider whether it is providing adequate support to this group of pupils ahead of the upcoming Spending Review. 
• With the exception of Black Caribbean pupils, White and Black Caribbean pupils and White and Black African pupils, all other ethnic groups have either pulled further away from White British pupils or have caught up with them to some degree, compared to 2011.

Disadvantage after GCSEs: Post-16 education routes

• The post-16 education routes taken by young people are becoming increasingly segregated by socio-economic status, with disadvantaged pupils disproportionately represented in certain routes.  
• In particular, the increased segregation is driven by an over-representation of disadvantaged students in further education. These trends may damage the government’s ambition of rectifying imbalances between further and higher education. 

Commenting on the new research, report author Jo Hutchinson said: 

"Our research shows that for the first time in several years, the gap between poorer pupils and their peers at GCSE has stopped closing. Trends suggest that this disadvantage gap may now be taking a new direction, where it begins to widen. 

"In addition, we find that both black Caribbean children and persistently disadvantaged children – those eligible for free school meals for most of their school lives – are now further behind their peers than they were in 2011. There has also been no progress in closing the gap this year for children with special educational needs and disabilities. 

“Rising average pupil attainment has not resulted in more equal outcomes for all, and we must be sceptical of rhetoric about social injustices that is not matched by a credible plan and resources”.

Rt. Hon. David Laws, Executive Chairman of the Education Policy Institute, said:

"We are now witnessing a major setback for social mobility in our country. Recent progress on narrowing the education gap between poor children and the rest has ground to a halt. Indeed, the very poorest children are actually further behind now than they were a decade ago - they are almost 2 years of learning on average behind other children by the time they take their GCSEs. 

"Educational inequality on this scale is bad for both social mobility and economic productivity. This report should be a wake up call for our new Prime Minister. We need a renewed policy drive to narrow the disadvantage gap - and this needs to be based on evidence of what makes an impact, rather than on political ideology or guesswork."

Documents

Full report: EPI Annual Report 2019

Full Geographical breakdowns

Technical Appendix
 

Notes to Editors

1. The Education Policy Institute (EPI) is an independent, impartial, and evidence-based research institute that promotes high quality education outcomes, regardless of social background. We achieve this through data-led analysis, innovative research and high-profile events. Find out more about our work here: https://epi.org.uk/

2. ‘The disadvantage gap’ measures the number of months of academic progress disadvantaged children are behind their non-disadvantaged peers. The disadvantage gap is examined at three education phases: early years (reception year), primary school (Key stage 2) and secondary school (Key stage 4, GCSEs).

3. In this report, our leading measure of the disadvantage gap at secondary school level measures attainment in GCSE English language and maths. All findings at secondary school level above relate to this measure. Examining the disadvantage gap in these two compulsory GCSE subjects gives us a more reliable assessment of the trend of the gap and a more robust basis for estimating how long it is likely to take to close, compared to the GCSE gap across all subjects. This is because English language and maths have been less affected by recent government reforms, which have affected student subject choices. 

4. ‘Disadvantaged pupils’ are defined as those pupils known to be eligible for free school meals at any point in the previous six years.

5. ‘Persistently disadvantaged’ are those pupils who have been eligible for free school meals at least 80 per cent of their time in school.