Conclusions and recommendations
Definitions
1. Statements relating
to the underachievement in education of white working class pupils
often use eligibility for free school meals as a proxy for working
class. Entitlement to FSM is not synonymous with working class,
but it is a useful proxy for poverty which itself has an association
with educational underachievement. (Paragraph 15)
Trends over time
2. Overall, the evidence
from analysing free school meals (FSM) data is that:
· white British children eligible for FSM
are consistently the lowest performing ethnic group of children
from low income households, at all ages (other than small subgroups
of white children);
· the attainment "gap" between
those children eligible for free school meals and the remainder
is wider for white British and Irish children than for other ethnic
groups; and
· this gap widens as children get older.
(Paragraph 30)
The general link between economic deprivation and
educational achievement
3. Measures of economic
deprivation and socio-economic status both suggest that white
"working class" children are underachieving, and that
the performance of some other ethnic groups is improving faster.
But they also show that similar problems persist in a number of
other minority groups. (Paragraph 34)
4. Some other ethnic
groups appear to be more resilient than white British children
to the effects of poverty, deprivation and low-socio-economic
status on educational achievement. Further work is needed to understand
why this is the case. The Government should commission a project
to assess why some ethnic groups are improving faster than white
British children, and what can be learned from steps taken specifically
to improve the achievement of ethnic minorities. This research
should include, but not be limited to, the effects of historic
funding and strategies, parental expectations, community resilience
and access to good schools. (Paragraph
35)
Gender
5. The problem of
white "working class" underachievement is not specific
to boys; attention to both sexes is needed. (Paragraph 37)
Data quality and availability
6. Data relating
to combinations of ethnicity and free school meals status is not
always readily available in Government statistical releases. The
Government should ensure that data relating to white FSM children
is included in its statistical reports.
(Paragraph 40)
7. The Government
should consider how data from a range of Departments can be combined
in future to develop a more rounded indicator of a child's socio-economic
status than FSM eligibility alone can provide for the purposes
of targeting intervention. (Paragraph
41)
8. The Government
should act to ensure that FSM data (and any future revised indicator)
is made available to post-16 institutions to allow effective monitoring
of the progress of this group of young people.
(Paragraph 43)
Will school improvement alone close the gap?
9. Twice the proportion
of poor children attending an outstanding school will leave with
five good GCSEs when compared with the lowest rated schools, whereas
the proportion of non-FSM children achieving this benchmark in
outstanding schools is only 1.5 times greater than in those rated
as inadequate. (Paragraph 47)
Parenting skills and language in the home
10. The evidence
we heard related to how the amount of language and breadth of
vocabulary used in the home in the early years varies by socio-economic
status. It is not clear whether this is a particular issue in
white working class homes as opposed to other ethnic groups. We
believe that this issue is critical. Further research in this
area is needed, given the importance of oracy to child development.
(Paragraph 63)
Absences and exclusions
11. We welcome
the reduction of the school absence rate in recent years. The
Government must continue to focus on encouraging reduced absence
from school. (Paragraph 68)
"Closing the gap"
12. We welcome the
introduction of the pupil premium and the recent announcement
of its extension to early years. The Government should continue
to monitor the impact of this policy. (Paragraph 85)
13. We welcome
Ofsted's 2013 report on the use of the pupil premium and recommend
that a similar report be produced annually to highlight how effective
schools are in using this money, focusing on the impact and highlighting
case studies of schools where the greatest progress is being achieved.
(Paragraph 87)
14. We welcome
the Minister's willingness to investigate whether other measures
of disadvantage may be more appropriate for allocating disadvantage
funding and tracking the performance of disadvantaged groups.
The Government should move quickly to do this.
(Paragraph 90)
15. We see the EEF
Toolkit as a positive development which will help schools to make
informed decisions about how to make best use of pupil premium
funding. This will be particularly important to support the roll-out
of the pupil premium to early years settings. (Paragraph 92)
Tackling regional variation
16. The improvements
in London's educational performance suggest that the problem of
white working class underachievement in education can be tackled.
In determining future policy in this area the Government must
carefully assess what positive impact the London Challenge may
have had and what its key features were. (Paragraph 99)
17. Given the changing
distribution of educational underachievement across the country,
the Government must develop a new funding formula for schools
which better matches allocation with need.
(Paragraph 103)
Best practice in schools
18. We welcome
Ofsted's recent focus on the issue of economically deprived white
children underachieving in education, and its 2008 report on good
practice in this area. We recommend that this continues to be
a focus for Ofsted, and that an updated good practice report is
produced. (Paragraph 105)
19. The current
trend towards longer school days presents an opportunity for schools
to provide space and time for students from lower socio-economic
backgrounds to complete homework, which may particularly benefit
white working class children. We recommend that Ofsted publish
a best practice report on this subject to provide guidance for
schools. (Paragraph 109)
20. Good leadership
and school cooperation are critical to school improvement. We
warmly welcome the Minister's commitment to encouraging system
leadership and look forward to examining the Government's proposals
in due course. (Paragraph 112)
Deployment of teachers
21. It is essential
that the best teachers and leaders work in the areas that need
them the most. The Government should publish an analysis of the
incentives that influence where teachers choose to work, and use
this to design a system that ensures that the most challenging
schools can attract the best teachers and leaders.
(Paragraph 120)
22. We welcome the
Government's plans to enable the analysis of data on teacher mobility,
and where newly qualified teachers choose to work; this will allow
for better monitoring of the effects of incentives in the system.
(Paragraph 122)
Parental engagement
23. We recommend
once again that the Government commission research into what kind
of engagement with parents in their children's learning makes
the difference in narrowing the gap between the most economically
disadvantaged children and their better-off peers, and in particular,
identify from specific schools and local authorities examples
of best practice that could be shared more widely.
(Paragraph 129)
Aligning social and education policies
24. We agree that
there is much that schools can do to address white working class
underachievement. Broader societal factors also have an enormous
role to play, but this should not deflect attention from the central
importance of improving school and teaching quality. (Paragraph
141)
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