Emily Hunt, Associate Director at the Education Policy Institute, said: “It’s disappointing that the government’s own disadvantage gap measure now stands at its widest in a decade. It’s clear that pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds faced a myriad of challenges while learning from home during the pandemic, and consequently experienced greater learning losses. But while the pandemic exacerbated inequalities, the attainment gap was already widening prior to 2020. As government considers whether education budgets could be cut further, any reductions pose the very real risk of further widening the attainment gap. Given that increasing numbers of pupils are falling into disadvantage, we urgently need a cross-government child poverty strategy to address the root causes of disadvantage.”
You can find the Department for Education’s release of KS4 performance statistics here.
