This report from the Education Policy Institute has found that Welsh schools have a wider disadvantage gap than English schools, but that both nations have made only modest progress in closing this gap during the last decade.
Narrowing the achievement gap between children from rich and poor backgrounds is a priority for policymakers across the UK. With increasing divergence on schools’ policy since devolution in 1999, there is great interest in how educational inequalities compare across the UK.
There is particular interest in comparisons between England and Wales given the shared historical context and similar
set of institutions. However, reforms to GCSEs and performance measures across England and Wales have made comparisons between the two nations extremely difficult using published data.
The ‘disadvantage gap’ is a leading measure of social mobility and an indicator of policymakers’ progress in reducing inequalities in education. Pupils are classed as ‘disadvantaged’ if they were eligible for free school meals in the past six years, and ‘persistently disadvantaged’ if they were eligible for free school meals for 80% of their time in education.
Key Findings:
- Figures on the impact of educational inequality for 2019 reveal Wales’ disadvantage gap to stand at 22-23 months, with England’s narrower at 18 months. Corresponding figures from 2011 show slow progress in narrowing these gaps, with figures only down from disadvantage gaps of 24 months in Wales and 20 months in England in 2011.
- Persistently disadvantaged pupils experienced still larger disadvantage gaps, with those in England suffering a persistent disadvantage gap of 23 months and those in Wales experiencing 29 months. With little sign of these persistent disadvantage gaps closing, alongside an expectation of a growing number of pupils in this category, improving educational outcomes for the persistently disadvantaged should be prioritised by policymakers.
- While it’s clear that Welsh schools in deprived areas suffer greater disadvantage gaps than their English counterparts, the report finds no evidence of this difference being a result of policy divergences between the two nations over the last decade.
- Although reasons for Wales’ higher disadvantage gap predate 2010, the Welsh local authorities with the highest disadvantage gaps should still seek best practice from those deprived areas of England faring better with comparable demographics. There are many comparable areas of England with similar levels of persistent poverty, but lower disadvantage gaps, such as Barnsley, Gateshead, Portsmouth, Salford, Stockton-on-Tees and Rotherham.
- To improve social mobility across each nation, EPI encourages a renewed focus to be targeted at narrowing disadvantage gaps within schools.