The kinds of poverty in schools and their impact on student progress
Lead Research Organisation:
Durham University
Department Name: Education
Abstract
There is already considerable evidence that the nature of school intakes matters. Schools vary in terms of the proportion of pupils with learning challenges or from disadvantaged backgrounds, for example. And this affects the resources required by each school, the progress that can be expected in terms of pupil attainment, and even pupils' sense of society and what would be an appropriate future for them. This new research is based on consideration of a newly constructed indicator of disadvantage at school, using it for a new approach to make considerations of school intakes both more accurate and fairer for all concerned.
The research questions are:
1) What is the pattern of pupil FSM 'trajectories' over their school careers? What are the characteristics of pupils who enter and leave FSM eligibility compared to those who remain eligible throughout their school life, those who have never been eligible, and those who are missing FSM data at some stage?
2) What difference does including the pupil FSM trajectories make to the apparent patterns of segregation between school intakes? Are permanently eligible or missing-FSM pupils clustered in particular areas, types of schools or schools?
3) What are the patterns of attainment of pupils with different FSM trajectories? What are the implications of this analysis for instruments of policy such as the Pupil Premium gap?
4) What difference does including the FSM trajectories make to school average progress scores? Would instruments of school performance policy, such as progress scores, be fairer given more detail about the more precise level of relative disadvantage in school intakes?
The results will be relevant for policy and practice in England, especially concerning attempts to reduce or overcome the poverty gradient in school attainment and subsequent educational participation. This study also contributes to important theoretical issues, and creates new knowledge about school systems and their performance. The study will use ESRC-supported existing official datasets to describe, better than in previous accounts, the changing nature of intakes to schools, and the link between pupil intake characteristics and subsequent attainment/participation. Previous studies and official accounts use FSM-eligibility as a binary (Y/N) variable, as opposed to the finer grained
variable to be used for these new calculations. The focus will be on secondary state-funded mainstream schools in the National Pupil Database, following cohorts from 2003/4 onwards from their primary schools to Year 11, looking at pupils moving in and out of eligibility for free school meals (FSM), and those missing relevant data. It will collate the other characteristics and the outcomes for these different patterns of pupil FSM 'trajectories', and recalculate existing and published indices of FSM segregration between schools, school types, and regions. It will use all of these results to create statistical models to assess the extent to which consideration of these different categories of pupils living in poverty - such as never eligible, recently became FSM, previously FSM, moving in and out of FSM-eligibility, and missing relevant data - changes our understanding of how serious FSM segregation between schools is, what impacts it has, what causes it, and how it relates to attainment and pupil progress.
Instruments of school performance policy, such as progress scores, may not be fair in the absence of more detail about the more precise level of relative disadvantage in school intakes, as will be provided by this study and its consideration of 'trajectories' of FSM-eligiblity over time and their interaction with other pupil background characteristics. Also policies such as the pupil premium can be made more efficient and effective, by directing extra funding to where it is most needed. The project will contribute to a better education system, a more efficient use of taxpayer-funding and a fairer society
The research questions are:
1) What is the pattern of pupil FSM 'trajectories' over their school careers? What are the characteristics of pupils who enter and leave FSM eligibility compared to those who remain eligible throughout their school life, those who have never been eligible, and those who are missing FSM data at some stage?
2) What difference does including the pupil FSM trajectories make to the apparent patterns of segregation between school intakes? Are permanently eligible or missing-FSM pupils clustered in particular areas, types of schools or schools?
3) What are the patterns of attainment of pupils with different FSM trajectories? What are the implications of this analysis for instruments of policy such as the Pupil Premium gap?
4) What difference does including the FSM trajectories make to school average progress scores? Would instruments of school performance policy, such as progress scores, be fairer given more detail about the more precise level of relative disadvantage in school intakes?
The results will be relevant for policy and practice in England, especially concerning attempts to reduce or overcome the poverty gradient in school attainment and subsequent educational participation. This study also contributes to important theoretical issues, and creates new knowledge about school systems and their performance. The study will use ESRC-supported existing official datasets to describe, better than in previous accounts, the changing nature of intakes to schools, and the link between pupil intake characteristics and subsequent attainment/participation. Previous studies and official accounts use FSM-eligibility as a binary (Y/N) variable, as opposed to the finer grained
variable to be used for these new calculations. The focus will be on secondary state-funded mainstream schools in the National Pupil Database, following cohorts from 2003/4 onwards from their primary schools to Year 11, looking at pupils moving in and out of eligibility for free school meals (FSM), and those missing relevant data. It will collate the other characteristics and the outcomes for these different patterns of pupil FSM 'trajectories', and recalculate existing and published indices of FSM segregration between schools, school types, and regions. It will use all of these results to create statistical models to assess the extent to which consideration of these different categories of pupils living in poverty - such as never eligible, recently became FSM, previously FSM, moving in and out of FSM-eligibility, and missing relevant data - changes our understanding of how serious FSM segregation between schools is, what impacts it has, what causes it, and how it relates to attainment and pupil progress.
Instruments of school performance policy, such as progress scores, may not be fair in the absence of more detail about the more precise level of relative disadvantage in school intakes, as will be provided by this study and its consideration of 'trajectories' of FSM-eligiblity over time and their interaction with other pupil background characteristics. Also policies such as the pupil premium can be made more efficient and effective, by directing extra funding to where it is most needed. The project will contribute to a better education system, a more efficient use of taxpayer-funding and a fairer society
Planned Impact
The study has the potential to influence government policy, international and local policy-makers, stakeholders such schools and teachers, the context for school inspections, and the work of those attempting to overcome disadvantage in education. Whatever the results are they will be relevant to judgements about school performance, the fairness of school place allocation procedures, inspection findings by providing context for the pupil premium gap in each school, and teacher and departmental effectiveness judgements. They will also provide a focus for where interventions to overcome the effects of poverty on schooling would be most needed or most effective
Poverty, as assessed by FSM-eligibility, is routinely used as context for judging both individual- and school-level attainment, as an indicator of school composition, and as the basis for the pupil premium (PP) funding policy. PP itself is
important for current policies based on assessing the pupil premium gap in schools, including the work of OFSTED, RAISE, the National pupil premium Champion, and various school awards. As shown by the preparatory work for this bid, many of the calculations underlying such policies/practices may be unwittingly misleading, and unfair to certain types of schools and regions. Knowledge of the quality, reach and limitations of FSM as an indicator is therefore fundamental to accurate decision-making in all of these important areas. The results should lead to improved understanding of the nature and impact of school intakes, and understanding the impact of peers and school intake clustering on attainment and progress. The findings will have considerable implications for the use of evidence from the Pupil Premium Toolkit, and the ways in which school performance is analysed more generally. A wider community, including admission authorities, individual schools and families will also be interested, as will those concerned with school choice policies around the world.
An important part of this project will be to engineer the evidence found into an easily usable form for policy-makers and practitioners. These forms will include evidence summaries, press releases, and evidence-based recommendations. We will use a variety of our regular channels for disseminating the results in usable formats - including broadcast and print media, House of Commons Select Committee, think-tanks, admissions authorities and active groups such as the Campaign for State Education.
Given the ambitions of the project it is important to engage intended beneficiaries of the research from the outset, and several key organisations including the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Educational Endowment Foundation, the ATL,, and seven local authorities in areas of high disadvantage have agreed to be part of our user group already. They will help shape the objectives and progress of the research, and to create outcomes in a form that will be most useful for policy-makers and practitioners. We anticipate them being contributors from the outset, and major channels for disseminating the findings and recommendations from our research (see Letters of Support). We will add further users and groups as the study progresses.
Once this work has been completed, it should also prepare the way for further primary research in the kinds of settings represented by the local authorities in the user groups, pursuing the results of the secondary analyses into field settings.
See also Academic Beneficiaries for publication and other dissemination plans.
Poverty, as assessed by FSM-eligibility, is routinely used as context for judging both individual- and school-level attainment, as an indicator of school composition, and as the basis for the pupil premium (PP) funding policy. PP itself is
important for current policies based on assessing the pupil premium gap in schools, including the work of OFSTED, RAISE, the National pupil premium Champion, and various school awards. As shown by the preparatory work for this bid, many of the calculations underlying such policies/practices may be unwittingly misleading, and unfair to certain types of schools and regions. Knowledge of the quality, reach and limitations of FSM as an indicator is therefore fundamental to accurate decision-making in all of these important areas. The results should lead to improved understanding of the nature and impact of school intakes, and understanding the impact of peers and school intake clustering on attainment and progress. The findings will have considerable implications for the use of evidence from the Pupil Premium Toolkit, and the ways in which school performance is analysed more generally. A wider community, including admission authorities, individual schools and families will also be interested, as will those concerned with school choice policies around the world.
An important part of this project will be to engineer the evidence found into an easily usable form for policy-makers and practitioners. These forms will include evidence summaries, press releases, and evidence-based recommendations. We will use a variety of our regular channels for disseminating the results in usable formats - including broadcast and print media, House of Commons Select Committee, think-tanks, admissions authorities and active groups such as the Campaign for State Education.
Given the ambitions of the project it is important to engage intended beneficiaries of the research from the outset, and several key organisations including the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Educational Endowment Foundation, the ATL,, and seven local authorities in areas of high disadvantage have agreed to be part of our user group already. They will help shape the objectives and progress of the research, and to create outcomes in a form that will be most useful for policy-makers and practitioners. We anticipate them being contributors from the outset, and major channels for disseminating the findings and recommendations from our research (see Letters of Support). We will add further users and groups as the study progresses.
Once this work has been completed, it should also prepare the way for further primary research in the kinds of settings represented by the local authorities in the user groups, pursuing the results of the secondary analyses into field settings.
See also Academic Beneficiaries for publication and other dissemination plans.
Organisations
Publications
Gorard, S.
(2018)
Grammar schools in England: a new analysis of social segregation and academic outcomes
in British Journal of Sociology of Education
Gorard S
(2018)
Grammar schools in England: a new analysis of social segregation and academic outcomes
in British Journal of Sociology of Education
Gorard S.
(2018)
Education policy: Evidence of equity and effectiveness
in Education policy: Evidence of equity and effectiveness
Siddiqui N
(2018)
The importance of process evaluation for randomised control trials in education
in Educational Research
Gorard S
(2017)
An Analysis of School-Based Contextual Indicators for Possible Use in Widening Participation
in Higher Education Studies
Siddiqui N
(2017)
Comparing government and private schools in Pakistan: The way forward for universal education
in International Journal of Educational Research
Siddiqui N
(2022)
Is household income a reliable measure when assessing educational outcomes? A Jigsaw of two datasets (Next Steps and National Pupil Database) for understanding indicators of disadvantage
in International Journal of Research & Method in Education
Kuha J
(2016)
Comment on 'What to do instead of significance testing? Calculating the "number of counterfactual cases needed to disturb a finding"' by Stephen Gorard and Jonathan Gorard
in International Journal of Social Research Methodology
Gorard S
(2018)
Do we really need confidence intervals in the new statistics?
in International Journal of Social Research Methodology
Boliver V
(2019)
Using contextual data to widen access to higher education
in Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education
Description | We did, and this was recorded in Research Fish for several years. When we came to update this time, we updated and saved (it said it was saved as a draft) but in fact all of it disappeared. Please upload from prior versions. We can see no way of accessing the saved draft. |
Exploitation Route | Yes. But see above. |
Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy Education Transport Other |
Description | Schools are using the finer measures of deprivation to help understand the attainment and progress of their students in context. Has been been discussed in House of Commons, Lords, Scottish Parliament, and was used by opposition parties and unions during 2017 election. Invited to give The Caroline Benn Memorial Lecture: House of Commons, London, November 2018 Basis of successful Festival of Social Science event November 2018 with policy-makers and practitioners. Videos of overview and full Question Time session available at https://www.dur.ac.uk/dece/news/. Narrative impact report came second in BERA Impact and Engagement Award 2019. Led to BERA Blog - https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/lets-make-education-fairer, an invited paper in Research Intelligence - https://www.bera.ac.uk/news/2018-public-engagement-impact-award-winners When this project started: • The link between disadvantage and attainment in education was underestimated; • Schools in NE deemed underperforming, with advisers suggesting no investment in infrastructure until this was sorted out; • Government planned to increase grammar school and faithbased numbers; • DfE claimed every missed schoolday affected results • Countries worldwide did not routinely monitor social segregation in school systems. By end, these had all changed, with links to our project as being influential in raising awareness, changing minds, or leading to new policies/practices. The project created more successful ways of assessing disadvantage using official data, based on 'trajectory' of individual indicators, taking missing data seriously. These have changed use/interpretation for MPs (p.22, https://tinyurl.com/y742jnp3), Scottish Parliament (p348, https://tinyurl.com/yab2z77s), and the Royal Society Edinburgh. The Hartlepool Fabian Society organised series of meetings "What can one town do to improve its education" predicated on reanalysis of local attainment using length of poverty as a predictor (https://www.hartlepoollabour.org.uk/event/hartlepool-fabians-what-can-one-town-do/). Schools and authorities wrote to request reanalysis of their own figures that they could present to Ofsted. Relative 'failure' of schools in the NE is an illusion (https://edexec.co.uk/freeschoolsmealsmeasuremasks- north-south-divide-in-pupil-poverty/) - affecting how schools in the area address low attainment (https://www.newstatesman.com/feeds?page=119&qt-ns_mobile_editors_picks=1), and widening participation to HE (https://www.citymetric.com/politics/regional-inequality-has-huge-impact-teenagersuniversity- chances-so-how-can-we-fix-it-4259). Different types of schools increase segregation but do not improve attainment. Increasing selection to schools was relevant to 2017 election, made national headlines (http://educationmediacentre.org/newsreactions/conservative-manifesto-education-pledges-fundingfsm- grammar-schools-expert-analysis/). Policy-makers took notice (including Lucy Powell MP, Peter Kyle MP), sharing/discussing the research results online. More notice taken by opposition than government (https://www.libdemvoice.org/was-michael-gove-right-51800.html). Raised by Lord Storey in consultation on Schools that Work for Everyone (https://tinyurl.com/ya5qv8r8), and Lyn Brown MP discussing social mobility (https://tinyurl.com/y72osaa2). Our evidence forms substantial part of Full Fact reports 2016/2017 (https://tinyurl.com/yayflj4d), and Houses of Parliament POST Note, on methodologically robust studies of state selective schooling (https://tinyurl.com/ya66ur4x). Led to blueprint for an incoming Labour government (https://comprehensivefuture.org.uk/campaignitems/ decision-time-plan-phase-selection/). Helped by our user group, we used many avenues for the widest possible audience for the results, their robustness, and implications. These included giving evidence to Select Committees, a POST for the Houses of Parliament library, Labour Party Conference fringe events, oral and written evidence to Social Mobility Commission for their 2018 State of the Nation Report. We gave the Caroline Benn Memorial Lecture: House of Commons. We wrote non-academic pieces on the issues for New Scientist, Public Finance, Public Sector Focus, Schools Week, Full Fact, the Conversation, the Question, and Children and Young People Now. Over 80 broadcast interviews during the project to BBC TV Breakfast, Sky TV News, ITV News, BBC Radio 4 6:00 News, More or Less, and Any Answers, BBC Five Live, BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat, BBC Radio 2, most BBC local radio stations, independent radio. These concerned social mobility, school types such as Academies, faith-based, grammar, the summer birth problem, and impact of absences. We gave over 70 press interviews or wrote pieces for newspapers, including the New Statesman, Guardian, Sunday Times, i, Independent, Observer, Daily Mirror, Sun, Times Educational Supplement, Times Higher Education, the Herald, Northern Echo, Scottish Sun, with international outlets picking these up. These additionally covered inequalities, the N/S divide, Pupil Premium gap, mistakes in diagnosing SEN, and Ofsted grading. We held a successful ESRC Festival of Social Science event for the general public, and spoke at user conferences including Research Ed, National Local Authority, Schools of Tomorrow, Inside Government Pupil Premium Westminster Briefing, UCL Teacher Summer School, and Schools North East. We debated on grammar schools with Peter Hitchens at FitzWilliam College, Cambridge. We made all publications open access, and put them out on Twitter. One day eight MPs were tweeting about our work. We wrote blogs in English and Urdu. Our new approach led to different ways of assessing segregation/clustering of opportunities. We hosted scholars from Brazil, Spain and tribal regions of India wanting to learn about measuring socioeconomic segregation between schools/areas, using Gorard Segregation Index (GS). There is now monitoring of segregation using our ideas in Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Pakistan, South Africa, Texas, Columbia, Chile, Brazil. Work on attainment at school fed into debates about impact of absence from school (http://educationmediacentre.org/blog/does-missing-one-week-of-school-lead-to-lower-grades-byprofessor- stephen-gorard/), and summer born problem (https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/educationcommittee/ dfe-evidence-check-forum/summer-born-children/?page=4), such as Full Fact 2016 report on lack of clear link between absences and attainment (https://tinyurl.com/y99skkef). Evidence raised in the House by Steve Double MP (https://tinyurl.com/y7pdusnl). We provided evidence for Parents' Union (http://www.theparentsunion.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/statement-for-schools-nov-17.pdf). Fines for brief absences came under review (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-38774418). Funded as part of ESRC Festival to discuss the findings and implications with the general public. Videos available of overview (https://youtu.be/BNNBSJlwcWs) and "question time" (https://youtu.be/5dkV8uNenbU). Q24 includes letters from schools seeking information on their own attainment gap, and explaining how the project (summarised in 2018 book "Education Policy") provoked powerful thinking about low attainment. There are examples from Spain, Brazil of international use of our approaches, and their relevance for overcoming local segregation of opportunities. We helped check the education manifesto "Reclaiming education", provided evidence for Chief Inspector for Schools, Campaign for State Education, Comprehensive Future. Letters explain that the influence of "Gorard and Siddiqui's research on public opinion concerning grammar schools policy cannot be overstated". Relating to NE purported underperformance, there are letters from Schools NE, and Pupil Premium Champion Northumberland, explaining how the work is used to reassure schools/parents, help decide where to address problems, and choose initiatives (e.g. via Opportunity North East), prepare briefing papers for ministers, and governor training. Our model of 'trajectories' of disadvantage for considering the allocation and impact of the Pupil Premium, the context for school performance measures, regional disparities in education, and measuring segregation, has been widely taken up and espoused by governments, practitioner bodies, and school stakeholders. Our ideas have been linked to specific policy issues such as the withdrawal of a Bill to force all schools in England to become Academies, and affected public policy discourse on disadvantage in schools, including in relation to the expansion of grammar schools, and the North:South divide in education. In addition, our research on reducing the poverty attainment gap more directly has influenced the work of many schools and education providers in England directly. As part of our engagement with stakeholders, we provided oral evidence to the House of Commons Education Committee. The Select Committee also published our written evidence as part of eight other relevant investigations. We provided oral evidence to the EU Commission and Royal Society of Edinburgh, and written evidence to the Scottish Parliament Education and Skills Committee, on the attainment of pupils experiencing poverty. We were invited by the Director General for Social Care, Mobility and Disadvantage at the DfE to discuss our findings on the North:South divide, and their implications, to all staff across England at 'DfE Live' 19/11/19. We acted as academic adviser to the Cabinet Office from 2014, and as members of the DfE Advisory Group for Holiday Activities and Food from 2019. We took part in Evidence Week in Parliament June 2019, speaking to 39 Parliamentarians including the Shadow Minister for Education. The press coverage of our work in this area includes at least 165 stories in all major newspapers including Guardian, Economist, Sun, Independent, TES, Observer, New Statesman, Times Higher Education, i, Daily Mirror, Sunday Times, Financial Times, Telegraph, Daily Mail, Times, Evening Standard, and Metro. Almost every local newspaper in England covered our story about the impact of grammar schools. Stories about our research appeared on Sky, BBC and ITV national news, Sunday Politics, Victoria Derbyshire and Breakfast on BBC1, Radio 2, Radio 4, Five Live, and LBC, again with the grammar school story being covered by most UK local radio stations. As a result of this engagement activity, we were recognised in the 2018 BERA Impact and Engagement Awards. Academisation (evidence in more detail in Source S1, cited in Section B5) The proposed 'Forced Conversion of Schools to Academies' was opposed by an NUT (2013) newsletter to all its 330,000+ members, and then picked up by activists across England, saying " Academies are creating greater segregation between pupils from rich and poor homes than community schools, according to research, led by Professor Stephen Gorard from the University of Durham". The NUT also reported in EDUFACTS (2014) "Analysis by Professor Stephen Gorard found no clear evidence that academies outperformed the schools which they replaced or similar local authority schools with equivalent intakes. He also found no evidence of any benefit for schools which are already performing well converting to academies". A TUC (2014) briefing said "Gorard and his collaborators are amongst the foremost researchers of school segregation. They have used a national pupil database with data from 1989 onwards covering all state-funded primary and secondary schools in England There was an even greater link between higher segregation and a higher proportion of converter academies". This led to greater awareness of our evidence among Parliamentarians. For example, in the Education and Adoption Bill 8th Sitting, Kevin Brennan MP, the Shadow Minister for Education said "Professor Stephen Gorard of Durham University pointed out in his written evidence that we should be very careful about that fragmentation and ensure it does not cause socioeconomic divides and issues around special needs, which we spoke about earlier. On that basis, I ask my hon. Friends to join me in opposing clause 7 [forced academisation] stand part".. This debate cites evidence submitted by us based on R1 (Hansard 2015a), and Brennan again referred to this evidence when discussing coasting schools, in Clause 1 of the Education and Adoption Bill 9th Sitting (Hansard 2015b). As a result of pressure from opposition and activists like the TUC and NUT who all quoted our work as the underpinning evdience, the government reversed the announcement that all schools in England would become academies. Our evidence was also used in more direct campaigning against forced Academisation, such as in opposition to the Sedgehill and Prendergast Academy 2015 plans: "Converter Academies, on average, take far less than their fair share of disadvantaged pupils. They aren't helping increase social justice in education [according to] Professor Gorard, listed in Governors' own report" (Powell-Davies 2015). The Socialist Party (formerly Militant) picked up this campaign and used the same evidence in 'Save our schools' (The Socialist 2015). Sedgehill and Prendergast Schools have not yet been forced to become Academies. Grammar school expansion (Source S2 below) In the build up to the 2017 election, grammar school expansion was opposed by Liberal Democrat Voice (2016), Left Futures (2017), and others, using our evidence. Our work forms a substantial part of Full Fact (2016) and Full Fact (2017) reports on the evidence surrounding grammar schools/social mobility, and in the Houses of Parliament POST Note for MPs/Lords on 'Academic Evidence on Selective Secondary Education' (Parliamentary Business 2016), and is the basis for opposition to grammar schools by the pressure group Comprehensive Future (2018) - citing R2 and R4. The Labour Party Manifesto for the 2017 General Election had a supporting document 'Ending Selection by wealth, ability and aptitude. "Take for example, the very thorough recent study of 1/2m children by Gorard and Siddiqui from the University of Durham that shows that when adjusted for background and prior attainment, grammar school pupils achieve near identical results to similar pupils in comprehensive schools. Supporters of selection have argued that disadvantaged children do better in selective than non-selective schools but Gorard and Siddiqui show this is simply not the case" (Policy Forum 2017). The same research was referenced several times in Parliament in both houses. In a debate on 'Social Mobility and Economy', Lynn Brown MP Shadow Minister Treasury said "Many of us will have seen the new research from Durham University confirming that grammar school pupils do better because they are more likely to have social advantages, not because selective education is superior..." (Hansard 2018a). The same study was referred to by Lord Storey, Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson on Education, in a debate on 'Schools that Work for Everyone', answering "Why are we opposed to grammar schools?" (Hansard 2018b). Commenting on a Radio 4 Tonight (2018) broadcast, the Local Schools Network said "Plainly, as this research by Stephen Gorard establishes, the idea that selective grammar schools or academies are more likely to improve pupil progress overall than community comprehensives, is demolished". Education Politics (2019) reported the 2018 Caroline Benn Memorial Lecture [in the House of Commons "was delivered by Professor Stephen Gorard from Durham University. The lecture was a masterclass in showing how a rigorous analysis of data can challenge the ill-informed assumptions of many policy makers. A central claim was that data relating to poverty has been consistently misunderstood and that this has led policy makers to draw radically wrong conclusions Pupil Premium allocations and much of the analysis of disadvantage that follows from it miss the essential difference between brief periods of low income and chronic, endemic levels of poverty found in some areas. This means of course that we are distributing funding in a way that doesn't properly match needs". The messages from our research have clearly been heard and taken on board by many of those concerned. The 2017 election did not produce an outright majority for the Conservatives, the chief adviser to the PM changed immediately after the election, and in 2019 the PM herself resigned. The grammar school policy is currently in abeyance. Our work was again used more directly at local levels. The Kent Education Network opposed plans for a new satellite grammar school. "Having viewed proposals by Queen Elizabeth Grammar School and the Barton Court Academy Trust I, on behalf of the Governors of The Whitstable School, would like to express unequivocal objection to what those plans appear to envisage the notion that grammar schools promote social mobility is routinely claimed. That claim has been investigated most recently by Professor Stephen Gorard of the University of Durham. The Gorard study has received a lot of attention with an irreproachably inclusive sample i.e. the entire national KS4 population 2014- 2016 There is absolutely no empirical evidence that grammar schools have made any positive impact on social mobility". At time of writing, this new satellite school has not been agreed. The North:South divide (Source S3 below) The National Governance Association (2018) referred to R6 when querying the official idea that schools in the North of England were failing their poorer pupils. A manifesto for one disadvantaged authority in the NE, 'Searching for the Hartlepool Promise' said "This isn't a north-south divide, either, as some would have it. Professor Stephen Gorard of Durham University tracked the progress of 1.8 million pupils. He found no evidence that schools in the northeast were less effective. It is the socio-economic mix of a pupil body that dictates outcomes, not school effectiveness" (New Statesman 2018). The Head of Policy at the Social Mobility Commission asked for our help on this when preparing its 2018 State of the Nation Report, which recommended that the government consider whether "differential levels of funding might be more beneficial for those with long-term disadvantage", as we had suggested to them. Sammy Wright, a Social Mobility Commissioner wrote to us on 17/1/19, because our work came up in conversations with Opportunity North East and Schools North East, asking for help to "address the problems of social mobility with an awareness of the subtleties of the data". This led to a roundtable on 26/2/19 to "explore likely solutions with the hope of establishing a set of medium-term social mobility principles". Following this, the press quoted Commissioner Sammy Wright as saying that "schools should receive more cash for pupils who have been on free school meals longer", and using our figures (R5) to support this (Speck 2019). In response to claims that children in disadvantaged parts of the North are 18 months behind their peers elsewhere, and the blame that this implied for schools and teachers, a Schools North East (2019a) blog said "Durham University's Professor Stephen Gorard, shows that once you account for the impact of long-term deprivation, the region's secondaries perform as well as any in the country". And responding to DfE funding figures "Despite the high levels of long term disadvantage in our region, we will not be receiving adequate funding" (Schools North East 2019b). Our findings were used in the Schools NE election manifesto for NE education (Schools North East 2019c). [NOTE: follow up impact of manifesto over next few months]. And to defend Darlington against the charge of having too many "stuck" schools. We have been contacted by individuals and groups of schools, to discuss how our research relates to their context. On 21/3/17 Sarah Holmes-Carne, Head of Kenton School wrote 21/3/17 wanting us to "analyse how Kenton FSM6 do against National FSM6 in terms of progress... based on the number of years claiming", in order to select appropriate strategies. We were able to show that pupils at Kenton were making equivalent average progress to all pupils in England who had been eligible for FSM for the same duration. Similarly, we helped Andy Finley, Headteacher of Park View School in Chester-le-Street 11/10/19, and Amy Blackburn, Pupil Premium lead of Oxbridge Lane School in Stockton 12/10/19, with talks to staff, advice and similar re-analyses of their data. |
First Year Of Impact | 2016 |
Sector | Education |
Impact Types | Cultural Policy & public services |