GCSE and A-level Results: Attainment Gap

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for bringing this important debate to the House and the many speakers who have spoken of the need to highlight the failings in the system in order to restore the horrendous inequalities we suffer as a nation because of the gaps we have in educating our children. I taught for almost 35 years, mainly in south Wales, which has a similar demographic to the north-east of England: low economic levels after years of deindustrialisation, low wages and low skill levels.

Bridget Phillipson MP, our shadow Education Secretary and a representative from the north-east, when responding to new research showing that half of pupils who get low grades at GCSE are already judged to be behind at age five, said: “The Conservatives are failing our children. Higher quality early years education is essential to boosting outcomes for children, but under the Conservatives, early years support is increasingly unavailable and unaffordable, putting this essential education out of reach of more families. Labour would be tackling this now, investing in children’s early learning through our children’s recovery plan and ending tax breaks for private schools to invest in driving up standards across all schools, for every child.”

I looked at the three-year research project by Professor Major of the University of Exeter to seek to understand why successive Governments have failed to address an issue that has continued to plague England’s education system for several decades. Failure to get a grade 4 in both English language and maths GCSE—notwithstanding my noble friend’s issues with GCSEs—is a strong indicator that teenagers lack the basic levels of literacy and numeracy needed to function and prosper in life after school.

In all my experience as a front-line classroom practitioner, one of my favourite phrases was, “Try to head off trouble at the pass.” I saw time and again that problems that were not picked up and resolved at an early stage of a child’s education persisted and deepened as they went through the secondary sector. Crucial to those issues was lack of literacy, especially reading and writing, but numeracy as well. Without these basic foundations, the rest of the curriculum becomes unreachable and progress is slow and poor.

The report Child of the North, from December 2021, highlighted that rising inequality costs the economy in lost potential. The research showed that children in the north have a 27% chance of living in poverty, compared to 20% in the rest of England. The report came up with a series of recommendations on how to narrow the gap and improve the lives and futures of millions of children in the north-east. Regional inequality was down to a lack of investment and it called for a £10 per child per week uplift in child benefit, bringing in free school meals, as we have done in Wales this week, and permanently feeding children during holidays. Investment in children creates high returns and benefits for society as a whole.

I have excellent examples of what Governments can do to deal with child poverty, because tackling child poverty has been, and continues to be, a priority for every Minister in the Welsh Government, who have to deal with one of the highest rates of deprivation in the UK. This includes continuing to strengthen families and communities through early intervention; prevention programmes, such as Flying Start and Families First, that you in England used to have but no longer; further developing an early childhood care and education system; improving employability; and creating secure, fair work and a living wage.

The current crises we face in these unprecedented times are difficult for those who have to make decisions, but burdens are never shared equally and children will suffer unequally. After two years struggling to cope with job losses, the pandemic, pay cuts and rising costs, families with children have been hit the hardest once again by the worst inflation seen in four decades.

I will leave the final thought to Imran Hussain, who is director of policy at Action for Children:

“Poverty destroys life chances. You cannot level up the country with millions of children in poverty so it’s vital the Government brings forward a credible plan to reduce poverty.”