NPP Co-Signs Letter Calling for Educational Reforms to Address Long-term Disadvantage

A joint letter from SHINE, the Centre for Young Lives, and the Northern Powerhouse Partnership has been sent to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, calling for targeted reforms to tackle entrenched educational disadvantage in the UK. In the letter, the coalition outline a series of recommendations aimed at providing better support for disadvantaged students and reforming school accountability measures.

Research by Education Data Lab for NPP shows the scale of the issue: 29% of young people from persistently disadvantaged backgrounds are receiving workless benefits at age 22, five times the rate of their peers. The letter proposes a series of reforms to narrow the disadvantage gap by 2030.

One of the main recommendations involves increasing funding for pupils experiencing long-term disadvantage through an enhanced Pupil Premium. The coalition estimates that providing an additional £1,000 per pupil could benefit around 728,000 primary and secondary students, with a projected cost of £728 million annually. SHINE, NPP, and the Centre for Young Lives also advocate for the introduction of a 16-19 pupil premium to extend support to students in further education, estimated at £290 million.

Recognising the resourcefulness demonstrated by schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, the coalition urges the government to devolve more power to local communities. The letter recommends incentivising collaboration between schools, councils, and Mayoral Combined Authorities, especially in deprived areas, in order to address regional and socioeconomic challenges that different areas face.

Fiona Spellman, Chief Executive of SHINE, said: “Children who experience long-term disadvantage face a multitude of barriers to educational progress, both within and outside of school. These are the students who most need access to the very best quality teaching, but we know that schools are facing very real challenges as they seek to recruit and retain the very best staff, and this is especially true of schools in areas of deprivation.

A recent report by the National Audit Office showed the Department for Education currently lacks any coherent strategy for closing the attainment gap, despite this being a long-term policy objective. Targeting additional resources on the most disadvantaged students, intelligent reform to the accountability system and devolving power from Whitehall, have the power to lay the foundations for a more successful and prosperous future for every child.”

Henri Murison, Chief Executive of Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said: “The Pupil Premium is a vital tool to help try and meet the cost of providing the additional support that children in particular from less well-off backgrounds need. When we see how the disadvantaged, and when we can access the figures the long-term disadvantaged, have done in their GCSEs this year, my concern is that the chasm in attainment will still be at least as big a problem as it was before COVID.

I have every hope that under this new government that pupil premium can be enhanced for those who are the persistently worst off and who are heavily concentrated in a relatively small number of secondary schools here in the North and West Midlands in particular. Alongside a concerted effort to address the challenges in places and by making schools more inclusive we can make a real difference to both the disadvantage gap and regional disparities in how well our children do in exams, particularly the GCSEs.”

Read the full letter below: