Latest news with #attainmentgap
Sky News
a day ago
- General
- Sky News
Crisis in early years education as attainment gap widens, report warns
A crisis in early years education has emerged with the attainment gap between students widening since the pandemic, a report has revealed. An annual report from the Education Policy Institute (EPI) found that children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) face the widest attainment gap at 19.9 months in reception year - the largest on record. Particularly, children with SEND and with Education, Health and Care Plans were found by the EPI to have fallen behind their peers. Disadvantaged five-year-olds were also found to be up to one month further behind their more affluent peers compared to 2019. White British pupils have experienced a relative decline in attainment since 2019, the report added, leaving disadvantaged students in this group with some of the lowest achievement levels. And a decline in post-16 engagement was also found, with more than 20% of 16-year-olds not in education or training compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019. 2:42 Kali Jauncey-Childs, trust lead for early years at Oasis Community Learning and assistant principal at Oasis Academy Warndon in Worcester, told Sky News: "I think a key thing is the early identification of SEND. "We had the Sure Start centres, which were absolutely brilliant at bringing together lots of different services. We had all of the healthcare professionals, speech and language professionals, education all coming together to provide support to children and their families. "Those [services] not existing anymore means that there isn't that early identification as much now, even with the health visitor, especially since the pandemic." Zoe Jackson, assistant headteacher at Woodside Primary School in south London, added: "More children are entering our nursery settings and our reception classes with speech, language delays, difficulties in emotional regulation and emerging needs. "We have been proactive in trying to ensure that all children, regardless of their needs." Natalie Perera, chief executive of the EPI, told Sky News: "Our youngest and most vulnerable learners are still paying the price. "Without swift action, we are baking lifelong disadvantage into the system." In its report, the EPI called on the government to abolish the two-child benefit cap and extend free school meals to pre-school children. The thinktank also called for all teachers trained in child development and SEND identification and urged the government to increase disadvantage funding across all education phases, with a focus on persistently disadvantaged pupils. 6:10 A Department for Education spokesperson said in a statement to Sky News: "This report lays bare the widening disadvantage gap this government inherited, and which we are working flat out to solve through the Plan for Change. "From next year we will be investing £9bn per year in a revitalised early education system that helps get children ready for school - with working parents receiving 30 funded childcare hours per week, an almost 50% increase in early years disadvantage funding, and a strong new focus on improving the quality of reception year education. "Through our new Best Start in Life strategy, we're rolling out Best Start Family Hubs to every local area, and expect to have up to 1,000 hubs running by 2028, with a trained professional supporting families and children with SEND. "Alongside our free breakfast clubs, expansion of free school meals to all households on universal credit and investment in early support for children with SEND, we will turn the tide on these ingrained challenges across the education system." The EPI's annual report compares student attainment in 2024 with pre-pandemic levels in 2019, analysing disparities based on economic disadvantage, gender, ethnicity, English as an additional language, SEND and geography.
The Guardian
a day ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Five-year-olds in England with special educational needs 20 months behind peers
Five-year-olds with special educational needs in England are lagging a record 20 months behind their peers, according to a report that says the country's youngest learners face a 'deepening crisis', five years after the pandemic. Since Covid closed schools, disrupting learning and triggering falls in attendance, there has been widespread concern about the growing attainment gap that leaves disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs significantly behind their peers. According to the Education Policy Institute's (EPI) annual report, published on Tuesday, there have been 'precious few signs of recovery'. Though the disadvantage gap at primary and secondary schools narrowed marginally between 2023 and 2024, it says disadvantaged pupils remain significantly behind their peers, with the gap up to a month wider than before the pandemic. The gap has grown yet wider among children in reception class right at the start of their education, with pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) the most severely affected, the EPI analysis shows. In 2024, five-year-olds with education, health and care plans (EHCPs) – legally binding documents that outline the additional support required – were 20.1 months behind their peers, the widest gap on record since EPI analysis began more than a decade earlier. Five-year-olds from lower-income families than their peers are also falling further behind, prompting warnings that the impact of the pandemic has had 'long-lasting effects on infants' development'. Natalie Perera, EPI's chief executive, said the report showed that five years on from the pandemic the education system had yet to recover. 'Our youngest and most vulnerable learners are still paying the price. This should be a significant concern for policymakers,' she said. 'Without swift action, we are baking lifelong disadvantage into the system. Higher levels of funding for disadvantage, addressing student absence, and fixing the Send system, which is at crisis point, are urgent priorities.' The EPI report compares pupil attainment in 2024 with the previous year and with 2019, the year immediately before the Covid-19 pandemic, based on economic disadvantage, Send, gender, ethnicity, English as an additional language (EAL) and geography. It finds that fewer disadvantaged young people are participating in education post-16 than at any point since 2019, resulting in more than one in five disadvantaged 16-year-olds out of education or training. At key stage 4, which culminates in GCSEs and in education for 16-19-year-olds, the attainment of white British pupils has declined since 2019 relative to all other ethnic groups and girls have 'made consistently less progress than boys across secondary school once their attainment at age 11 is taken into account'. John Barneby, the chief executive of Oasis Community Learning multi-academy trust, said: 'The growing inequalities facing our youngest and most vulnerable children – particularly those with Send – are deeply concerning and risk entrenching disadvantage for a lifetime. 'Addressing these challenges requires bold investment and a shared commitment across society to give every child the opportunity to flourish and find their place in the world.' Pepe Di'Iasio, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: 'From a government whose mission is that background should not be a determining factor in success, we need to see more purpose and positive action. 'The gap identified between five-year-olds with special educational needs and disabilities and their peers is particularly alarming, and emphasises how important it is for the government to get right its planned reform of a system that is under unsustainable pressure and is not working well for anyone.' A Department for Education spokesperson said: 'This report lays bare the widening disadvantage gap this government inherited, and which we are working flat out to solve through the plan for change. 'From next year we will be investing £9bn per year in a revitalised early-education system that helps get children ready for school, with working parents receiving 30 funded childcare hours a week, an almost 50% increase in early years disadvantage funding, and a strong new focus on improving the quality of reception-year education.'
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
£30bn wasted on failed bid to boost poorest children's grades
Taxpayers have spent £30 billion on an equality drive that has failed to boost the grades of the poorest children, a damning new study has found. Researchers found the scheme, which was launched by Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister, has not delivered any meaningful results despite its huge price tag. Under the 'pupil premium' schools are given extra grant cash based on the number of their students who are eligible for free school meals. Introduced by Mr Clegg in 2011, it was designed to help close the attainment gap between children from wealthier and poorer households. But a report by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) found that, almost 15 years later, official data shows the difference in grades has 'barely narrowed'. The think tank said its findings raised questions about whether the pupil premium, which will cost another £10 billion by the end of the decade, is 'fit for purpose'. At around £3 billion a year the scheme costs the same as Britain's annual support to Ukraine and is twice as expensive as the winter fuel payment. The CSJ found that, despite the extra funding, the attainment gap at both primary schools and secondary schools was wider in 2023-24 than in 2016-17. It also discovered that disadvantaged pupils at six in 10 schools had worse outcomes on average in 2023-24 than they did before the pandemic. The report said: 'Fourteen years on, the stark reality is that attainment gaps between disadvantaged pupils and their peers have barely narrowed. 'This raises serious questions about whether the policy – in its current form – remains fit for purpose.'
