The long awaited Levelling Up White Paper was published this week, outlining the government’s plans to spread opportunity more equally across the country. The package includes plans to improve education for those living in the most disadvantaged areas.
Central to this focus on education is the creation of 55 ‘Education Investment Areas’ (EIAs), which will target the ‘cold spots of the country where school outcomes are the weakest’. These areas will see schools offered retention payments to help schools keep the best teachers in high priority subjects, prioritisation for new specialist sixth-form free schools, and support for wider issues such as attendance. The white paper sets out a ‘national mission to ensure that 90% of children leaving primary school in England are reaching the expected standard in reading, writing, and maths by 2030.’
In our Manifesto for North East Education, published in 2019, we called on all political parties to recognise the regional context when making education policy, and take a longer term view of education. Some of the announcements in the white paper do target areas of disadvantage, avoiding short term funding arrangements. One of our key recommendations sought support for the teaching profession, and the investment in retention is particularly welcome with teacher recruitment challenges exacerbated by the pandemic.
Alongside education, the white paper attempts to address gaps in opportunities beyond the school gate. The government has announced a ‘National Youth Guarantee’, with £560 million worth of investment for regular clubs and activities. £200 million is being invested in the ‘Supporting Families programme’.
And the government is also setting out a ‘skills mission’, with a Future Skills Unit to look at data and evidence of where skills gaps exist. In particular, the plans on skills will target those with additional and special educational needs, increasing the capacity of the Supported Internship programme.
The Levelling Up White Paper contains a range of welcome reforms and investments to support left behind areas. Six of the North East’s 12 Local Authorities are included as EIAs: County Durham, Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, South Tyneside, and Sunderland.
While this is an encouraging step in the right direction, the methodology used to select cold spots, and the targets used to measure outcomes, may present challenges. The selection of cold spots is based on pupil outcomes at the end of KS2 and KS4. For KS2, these outcomes are based on reading, writing and maths in national curriculum assessments, while average Progress 8 score is the metric used for KS4 performance.
However, these measures of educational outcomes don’t take into account contextual factors, perpetuating a false narrative around the quality of provision in schools working in disadvantaged communities. It is important that in targeting support, data is used accurately, addressing the nuances to ensure effective interventions and not one-size-fits-all approaches. This sort of evidence-based policy making was a central recommendation of our manifesto.
More concerningly is the use of these performance measures as targets. The target of 90% of children leaving primary school reaching the expected standards in reading, writing, and maths runs the risk of returning to the previous data-led inspection framework and more high stakes accountability. Indeed, school leaders in the North East expressed concerns that these targets set by DfE may undermine the work to develop a broad and balanced curriculum, as encouraged by Ofsted’s Education Inspection Framework.
A notable omission from these levelling up plans is support for early years, another of the key recommendations in our manifesto. Sixth forms and colleges have experienced some of the most significant education cuts, and so it is understandable that additional resources have been focused here. However, to address the attainment gap it is vital to ensure all children and families can access quality early years provision.
Schools are already under pressure from the pandemic to support students in academic ‘catch-up’, enrichment activities, and mental health and wellbeing. Schools continue to face significant Covid-related disruption, and as we look towards longer-term education recovery, we must use data to target adequate resources and identify best-practice, allowing schools the flexibility to meet the needs of their students. The funding in the Levelling Up White Paper will reach some of the most deprived communities in the country, and Schools North East will continue to lobby on behalf of our region to ensure schools are able to use these resources effectively.
