The FEA Report Card 2022
This year marks a decade since sector stakeholders collaborated to create the Impact Goals – a way for society to measure our progress in closing the disadvantage gap in education. Thanks to the focus and determined action of Fair Education Alliance members and others across society, we’ve seen pockets of brilliant practice leading to improved outcomes for young people. Yet, despite this, the disadvantage gap in some areas has been stubbornly persistent – and external factors like the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis mean that it is widening again. The headlines from this year’s Report Card are a reminder of the scale of the challenge we continue to face – and a call to arms for dramatic change.
The Gaps at a Glance
The attainment gaps at primary and GCSE are each at their highest levels since 2012.
Regional disparities are widening, and those who have been in poverty the longest are falling further behind
The mental health and wellbeing of poorer pupils and those with SEND has failed to bounce back from pandemic lows at the same rate as others.
Socio-economic status still dictates the type of destination young people enter post-16
The gap in progression rates to university has actually grown over the past decade, especially for the most selective universities.
This is no moment to let up – without the work of the FEA, our members and those across society working towards a fairer education for all, children and young people in England would have less equal chances than they do today.
Now is the time for bold, transformational change and a strategic collective response. That’s why we’re making seven bold asks.
What we’re calling for
The remaining size of these gaps reminds us that the problem is complex and ever-changing. That’s why we’re backing our members in calling for solutions to the root causes of these gaps in the education system: a more nuanced approach to collecting and using data, more holistic and joined up support for families, and a greater commitment to ensuring every young person has a route to meaningful work. We’re also calling for a collective response on three themes that are needed to unlock progress: poverty, place, and power.
Below are seven asks we believe will move the dial on educational inequality – so we can build on the learnings of the last ten years to close these gaps in the next ten:
Ask #1: Give all young people a rounded education, ensuring that skills and wellbeing are prioritised alongside attainment
What we’re calling for: A national wellbeing census of young people in line with #BeeWell’s 10-year plan to collect and embed rigorous and consistent national data about various aspects of the wellbeing of young people.
Ask #2: Engage parents and carers so learning goes beyond the school gates
What we’re calling for: We’re supporting the proposal made in a paper commissioned by our member Campaign for Learning, for a holistic Children and Families Strategy that brings together policy on children’s social care, SEND, mental health, parental engagement and family learning.
Ask #3: Support, incentivise and reward teachers and leaders to enable all children to thrive
What we’re calling for: We’re supporting our members ASCL and NAHT in calling for more balanced and shared school accountabilities that are tailored to a school’s context. This would include attainment measures as well as others set nationally and locally, related to inclusion, staff retention, and other factors important to a school’s success. Schools with similar pupil intakes would be compared to each other.
Ask #4: Give all young people the knowledge, skills and awareness to succeed in life after school
What we’re calling for: We support calls by our member Edge Foundation to invest in a variety of vocational qualifications for students with a range of GCSE attainment levels, including maintaining BTECs, refocussing the apprenticeship levy on young people aged 16-24, and supporting small businesses across the country to bring on apprentices.
Ask #5: Address rising poverty
What we’re calling for:
Create a School Funding Index.
Expand Free School Meals eligibility to all households eligible for Universal Credit.
Automatic enrolment for Free School Meals.
Extend Pupil Premium funding to early years and 16-19 and create a new category for persistently disadvantaged pupils.
Ask #6: Address regional disparities associated with place
What we’re calling for: The endowment of a national learning centre to convene practitioners, evaluate progress, and consolidate great practice related to place-based change.
Ask #7: Address who holds the power
What we’re calling for: We’re calling for a diversity of young people to be given the opportunity to meaningfully participate in decisions impacting their education.
Gina Cicerone, Chief Executive, Fair Education Alliance
"This sobering research reveals that the gap between young people from low-income backgrounds and their wealthier peers is still as wide as it was a decade ago, and will get wider without urgent action. This year alone, 500,000 more children will enter poverty. This increase, combined with a record number of pupils with special education and mental health needs and a 9% real terms cut in school funding, is a recipe for disaster.
Education is key to achieving a prosperous society with a strong economy, safe communities and healthy citizens, but schools cannot achieve this alone. We need investment now to give all children and young people a fair education, and to drive Britain’s success as a nation. Our seven recommendations involve making fundamental changes to achieve a thriving education system that works for every child. We must invest in a rounded education that priorities skills, wellbeing and attainment and properly resource it from cradle to career. We must address the impact of poverty on education and invest in places that have been left behind. Finally, we must meaningfully involve young people themselves in the future of education.”
Dr Vanessa Ogden, CEO of Mulberry Schools Trust and FEA Chair
““This year marks a decade since sector stakeholders collaborated to create the Impact Goals – a way for society to measure progress in closing the disadvantage gap in education. Fair Education Alliance members have devoted their attention to the elimination of that gap. Yet, as we see from our 2022 Report Card, at system level, the disadvantage gap in some areas has remained stubborn – and following the recent Covid-19 crisis, for poorer families it is widening again.
Without a strategic collective response to child poverty, that targets it in multiple ways at the same time, all we will ever do is skim the surface. In this Report Card, the FEA calls for a strategy to better link up and fund services that support families, to give schools real terms increase in the funding they need, and to gather comprehensive national data on the wellbeing of young people. We must ensure our system acknowledges the complexity of supporting young people from the most underserved communities to have happy and successful lives.”