An open letter to the Education Secretary

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An open letter to the Rt Hon Bridget Phillipson MP, Secretary of State for Education, from SHINE, the Northern Powerhouse Partnership and the Centre for Young Lives.

Dear Bridget,

SHINE, the Centre for Young Lives and the Northern Powerhouse Partnership share a commitment to tackling long-term disadvantage. The evidence shows that poverty is holding back those children growing up in persistently disadvantaged homes the most.

The Government has rightly set out a mission to shatter the glass ceiling. Research by Education Data Lab for the Northern Powerhouse Partnership has shown the significantly worse outcomes of the persistently disadvantaged in their lives heading into adulthood. 29% of long-term disadvantaged pupils were found to be receiving workless benefits at age 22. These young people were around five and a half times more likely to be in this position than those who had never been eligible for free school meals (5%).

Our proposals to secure an end to the disadvantage gap by the end of the decade are:

  1. Target funding towards children facing long-term disadvantage

In the run up to the upcoming fiscal event, Northern Powerhouse Partnership has suggested to the Chancellor that she provides additional Pupil Premium across the early years and from the start of primary school for those from long-term disadvantaged backgrounds. Estimates suggest that this would be around 8% of all pupils. With approximately 9.1m school pupils in England, this would mean around 728,000 attracting this additional funding in primary and secondary schools. Adding an additional £1,000 onto the Pupil Premium rate for pupils from such backgrounds (almost doubling the Pupil Premium funding for a secondary school pupil) would therefore cost £728m per year.

Allocating additional funds to schools who serve long term deprived children would be helpful to recognising the role that these schools and Colleges actually play in tackling issues beyond the classroom, and could be used as part of a broader shift of celebrating impactful practice in the most challenging contexts.

We also support the proposal to introduce a new 16-19 pupil premium to support disadvantaged pupils in further education, at a cost of circa £290m.

  1. Reform the accountability system to incentivise and reward inclusive practice

The current accountability system can incentivise schools to exclude large numbers of pupils or refuse admission to those with complex needs. There are many school leaders who embrace a genuine commitment to inclusion, as well as to high performance, however, the current safeguards in the system need to be strengthened so that inclusive practice becomes a core expectation. We recognise that pupil behaviour is a significant challenge, and schools must not be arbitrarily constrained in their approaches to tackling this. However, there are many examples of schools which achieve excellent progress through setting high expectations whilst also serving a high proportion of children from disadvantaged backgrounds. We need to move towards a system where more children can have their needs met within mainstream school, by ensuring that all schools are expected to accept higher needs pupils and wherever possible ensure their provision engages fully with their needs.

  1. Devolve power out of Whitehall to empower those closest to the issues

During the COVID pandemic, schools showed their resilience and ingenuity like never before. There is a generation of teachers and school leaders who are leading the charge in tackling inequality in education. Government must be prepared to empower those closest to the issues with necessary tools to build an education system fit for the future. Following the cuts to the Opportunity Area Programme we need to build back and empower communities of schools to work on shared challenges and to share resources and practice. There should be area-wide incentives for collaboration between schools, which also encourage partnerships with organisations beyond school supported by councils and Mayoral Combined Authorities.

We look forward to working with you on progressing the government’s approach to these challenges, and to meeting you here in the North with those seeking to make progress in communities when you are able to do so.

Yours sincerely,

Fiona Spellman,
Chief Executive, SHINE
Henri Murison,
Chief Executive, Northern Powerhouse Partnership
Jonny Utley,
Visiting Fellow, Centre for Young Lives