The young people who took their GCSEs this summer were in their first year of secondary school when the pandemic hit in 2020. For many, their results last Thursday were cause for celebration and a credit to their resilience during and after what was the most tumultuous time for the English education system in over 70 years. But dig beneath the positive headlines, and it becomes apparent that this set of grades demonstrates the growing socioeconomic attainment gap between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and their more affluent peers, with pernicious consequences for their lifetime opportunities, and for society more widely.
The regional gap in GCSE results has only got starker: this year, 28.5% of GCSE entries in London were awarded a grade 7, compared with 17.8% in the north-east and 18.3% in the East Midlands and Yorkshire. This is in large part accounted for by the socioeconomic attainment gap. The same can be said for the increasing gap in top GCSE grades between selective and independent schools on the one hand, and non-selective state schools on the other.
Analysis by the Education Policy Institute shows that the socioeconomic attainment gap was already widening again in 2019, but Covid school closures accelerated this trend. By the end of key stage 4, 16-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds – defined as being eligible for free school meals at any point in the previous six years – were 19.2 months behind their more advantaged peers in 2023, up from 18.1 months in 2019. This is underpinned by much higher absence rates for children from poorer backgrounds and with additional learning needs compared with other children in the wake of the pandemic.
The gap is a product of both the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on poorer children, and the impact of 14 years of cuts to public services on children with additional needs. Rates of child poverty have risen in recent years; school funding remains 4% lower in real terms than it was in 2010, with schools serving the least affluent populations hardest hit; and funding for support for special educational needs has not kept pace with the rising numbers of children who qualify for it. Conservative ministers failed to invest adequately in the catch-up tuition, after-school enrichment and mental health services during and after the pandemic needed to minimise its impact on children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
This is Labour’s inheritance. There should be no greater priority for a Labour government than addressing the widening socioeconomic gap in education outcomes. But its embrace of fiscal conservatism is impeding its ability to do anything about it. Its commitment to free breakfast clubs is welcome, but they are unlikely to have more than a marginal impact. A more generous pay settlement will help address the recruitment crisis in teaching. But reducing educational inequalities requires far more ambition and resources: directly addressing child poverty through increasing financial support for low-income parents; reinstating Sure Start services for the early years and attracting highly qualified graduates into nursery education in poor areas; significantly boosting school funding in less advantaged areas through the pupil premium; and expanding the availability of mental health and other services for children with additional needs.
Not investing in these things is a false economy that will not only hamper the lives of those young people who leave the education system without basic qualifications, but will scupper the long-term economic growth that ministers have promised to deliver. It would be a tragedy if this Labour government does not see that.
