What's Actually Happening in Schools?

The GCSE attainment gap between pupils eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) and their better-off peers has remained stubbornly wide throughout the past decade, closing only marginally despite sustained investment through the Pupil Premium. In 2024, FSM pupils averaged an Attainment 8 score of 36.5 against 55.7 for their non-FSM peers — a gap of 19.2 points.^[1] The COVID pandemic erased much of the modest progress made between 2016 and 2019, and catch-up funding distributed from 2021 through the National Tutoring Programme delivered mixed results: only a third of allocated tutoring hours were taken up in the first year.^[2] The Education Endowment Foundation estimates that, at current rates, it would take over 500 years for the attainment gap to close entirely.^[3]

Teacher shortages have intensified throughout the decade. The vacancy rate tripled from 0.5% in 2016 to 1.8% in 2022, concentrated in STEM subjects, modern languages, and schools in deprived areas. Secondary schools in the most deprived fifth of areas are twice as likely to be taught by an out-of-subject teacher as those in the least deprived fifth.^[4] Persistent absence — defined as missing 10% or more of possible sessions — reached 22.5% in 2022/23, more than double the pre-pandemic rate of 10.9%, affecting over 1.6 million pupils. Children in the highest absence decile accumulate on average a 12-month learning deficit versus their peers over the course of their schooling.^[5]