11901 TheTutorTrust ImpactReport2023 301123 1206 - Flipbook - Page 6
Challenges facing schools
and young people
The gap in outcomes between children and young
people from lower-income backgrounds and their
peers has long been a stubborn and unfair feature
The
need
of the UK’s education system.1
6
Tutor Trust Impact Report 2022/2023
1 Fair Education Alliance, 2023
Manifesto at https://static1.
squarespace.com/static/543e6
65de4b0fbb2b140b291/t/651a
8af662c10a6513ddca6e/16962
38329538/Fair+Education+
Manifesto+2023.pdf p12
2 Education Policy Institute,
Covid-19 and Disadvantage
Gaps in England, December
2022 at https://epi.org.uk/
wp-content/uploads/2022/12/
Covid19_2021_Disadvantage_
Gaps_in_England.pdf p8
3 DfE, Key Stage 2 Attainment
2022/23 at https://exploreeducation-statistics.service.gov.
uk/昀椀nd-statistics/key-stage-2attainment
4 Both from DfE, ‘Key Stage 4
performance’ at https://exploreeducation-statistics.service.gov.
uk/昀椀nd-statistics/key-stage-4performance-revised
5 ibid
6 ibid
* We’re using this word as it’s
the word used by the DfE, but
it’s not a word we like. Find out
why on page 19
Young people who have been eligible for
Free School Meals at any point in the past
six years on average achieve lower results
at every stage of their education than their
peers. As they move through school, the
gap widens rather than narrows. By the
time they leave school, these young people
are around 1.34 grades behind their peers
in English and Maths. The gap is bigger
for those young people who have been
consistently eligible for Free School Meals
throughout their education, with these
pupils around 1.7 grades behind.2
The pandemic made the gap grow wider
still; it grew to its widest level in a decade in
2022 and does not seem to have narrowed
much this year, with the gap at attainment
in SATs almost identical in 2023 to 2022.
In 2023:
• 44% of ‘disadvantaged’* pupils reached
the expected standard in reading, writing
and Maths in Year 63
• 66% of other, ‘non-disadvantaged’
pupils did so
• The Key Stage 4 disadvantage gap has
widened further since 2022, and now
stands at 3.95 – the highest level since
20114
• 25% of disadvantaged pupils achieved
Grade 5 or above in both English and
Maths, compared with 52.2% of nondisadvantaged pupils.5
There’s a regional element to this too; with
higher concentrations of poverty than other
areas, young people in Northern towns
and cities are less likely to achieve results
that unlock higher education and future
opportunities. The average Attainment 8
score for young people in Knowsley is 33.2 –
the lowest in the whole country.6 In Sutton,
South London, it’s 59.8, meaning that young
people here average around three GCSE
grades higher per subject.
The cost-of-living crisis has piled pressure
on families and, sadly, has hit hardest
on those families who were already
experiencing poverty. School leaders
report that cost-of-living pressures have
increased both the number of pupils
requiring additional support, and their
level of need, and they have also noted
increases in safeguarding concerns,
behaviour incidents and absenteeism,
particularly in secondary schools and in
schools serving low-income communities.7
Children and young people are struggling:
one in six children aged 5-16 are likely to
