As I write this article, it is GCSE results day. Along with the usual congratulations and photographs and television clips of young people celebrating their results, a Labour party analysis of regional inequalities in A level and GCSE pass rates is hitting the headlines.
In London, 32.6% of GCSEs were marked at grades 7/A and above but in North East England and in Yorkshire and the Humber, just 22.4% got the top grades.
Inevitably questions are being asked. Why did students in the North perform less well than their Southern peers?
The problem with answering this question, particularly when there is a strict time limit on your answer, is that this is a complex issue.
One factor is the national teacher shortage which has been building over the past few years and is now reaching a crescendo. When there are not enough teachers to go round, schools compete to recruit and retain them. Schools in disadvantaged, deprived areas of the country (and the pupils who attend them) are much more likely to have teachers without an academic degree in a relevant subject. The “expertise gap” is 10 percentage points for key stage 4 maths, 14 percentage points for chemistry and a remarkable 22 percentage points for physics (Allen et al, 2016).
Experienced, well qualified teachers are a bonus in all subjects – the greater the deficit in supply the more likely it is that the children who need these teachers the most – because their lived circumstances are already very challenging – will not get them.
England is one of the nations most affected by regional inequalities in teacher supply and this undoubtedly is an important factor in explaining regional inequalities in attainment.
But there is another, much more compelling reason why young people from disadvantaged areas, predominantly in the North but also in seaside towns throughout the country, do less well than their more advantaged peers – childhood poverty.
The stark fact is that 40% of the educational attainment gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children emerges even before they start school (Andrews et al, 2016).
The damage done to poor children’s potential education attainment is done even before their birth. It is astonishing that thousands of babies in England are still being born prematurely, smaller than their expected birthweight or stillborn because of socioeconomic and racial inequalities (Jardine et al, 2021; see also Gregory, 2021).
If the government is serious about levelling up education, it should do everything it can to eliminate child poverty. This is, however, an area where ministerial rhetoric is diametrically opposed to actual reality.
Despite all the talk of “levelling up” the hard truth is that child poverty is increasing and is projected to rise to 5.2 million by 2022 (Social Mobility Commission (2020). And this figure was calculated before the advent of sky-high inflation and energy price rises which will turbo charge the rate of increase of child poverty.
So, it is no surprise to me that in 2022 the number of teenagers receiving top A or A* grades at A level has fallen a third quicker in the North East than the South East when that decline is contrasted with the dramatic rise, from 26% to 38% of children living in poverty in that region which now has the highest rates of child poverty in the UK (Action for Children, 2022).
More than anything else, regional rates of child poverty explain regional inequalities in GCSE and A level grades.
- Dr Mary Bousted is the joint general secretary of the National Education Union. Read her previous articles for SecEd via http://bit.ly/seced-bousted
Further information & resources
- Action for Children: Where is child poverty increasing in the UK? July 2022: https://bit.ly/3Kn0sUQ
- Allen, Mian, & Sims: Social inequalities in access to teachers, Social Market Foundation, April 2016: https://bit.ly/3pKJFkW
- Andrews, Hutchinson, & Johnes: Grammar schools and social mobility, Education Policy Institute, September 2016: http://bit.ly/2RzSXjT
- Gregory: Thousands of adverse birth outcomes in England down to ‘alarming’ inequality’, The Guardian, November 2021: https://bit.ly/3cudPpA
- Jardine et al: Adverse pregnancy outcomes attributable to socioeconomic and ethnic inequalities in England: a national cohort study, The Lancet 10314, November 2021: https://bit.ly/3AOZgXa
- Social Mobility Commission: Monitoring social mobility 2013 to 2020, June 2020: https://bit.ly/3AqVjq5