When the new Prime Minister walks through the famous black door next week, he won’t be short of things to do. One of the more ambitious commitments he’ll inherit from his predecessor is the target, set out in the recent schools white paper, to halve the disadvantage gap by the time this generation of children finishes secondary school.
The Education Policy Institute has been tracking this gap – the difference in educational outcomes between socio-economically disadvantaged children and young people and their peers – for a decade. We analyse children’s results in key national assessments at ages 5, 11, 16 and 19, and report on how many months of learning disadvantaged children are behind their more advantaged classmates.
The gap is widening again
This year’s findings – which are based on assessments taken in 2025 – show that the new administration has an uphill battle ahead of it. The gap – which was already sizeable – widened significantly after the pandemic, but in the last couple of years it had started to narrow again. This year, we found that progress has either plateaued or reversed at every stage.
At age 5, disadvantaged children are already nearly 5 months behind their peers. This doubles to 10 months at age 11, and nearly doubles again to 19 months at age 16.
Why is the gap widening?
The short answer is that we don’t know for certain. But other recent research we’ve done suggests some possible reasons.
One is the number of children who are absent from school, which increased significantly after the pandemic and remains high.
Another is the challenge faced by children with special educational needs and disabilities, whose outcomes, especially for those from poorer families, are particularly concerning.
A third possible reason, which we find especially interesting, is the way the pandemic affected different age groups. We’ve looked back at what was happening during Covid to the two groups where the gap widened this year: those taking their GCSEs, and those in their first year at primary school.
Pupils taking their GCSEs in 2025 missed the end of primary school because of the first lockdown and had a disrupted start to secondary school. And children starting primary school last year were pandemic babies, born to mothers who were pregnant or caring for newborns with little support.
We don’t know for sure that this is the reason for the gap widening, but it certainly tallies with what we know about how the pandemic disproportionately affected the most vulnerable members of society.
What needs to happen?
Our report includes eleven targeted recommendations which would, if implemented, set the government on the right track to halving the gap.
Paramount among these is a focus on tackling attainment gaps early by improving access to, and the quality of, early years education. This should include funding 30 hours of early education for all families (including those currently out of work), and ensuring consistently high quality across the wide variety of early years and childcare providers.
The government also needs to provide increased funding to schools to support the education of disadvantaged children – through what is known as the pupil premium. It should introduce enhanced funding for children and young people living in persistent disadvantage (those who have been eligible for free school meals for at least 80% of their time at school), and extend the pupil premium to 16-19 year olds (currently it stops at 16, despite all young people having to be in education or training to 18).
And it needs to invest more in the people who support children and young people with special educational needs and other vulnerabilities, both within and beyond school, including by recruiting more educational psychologists and substantially improving access to children’s mental health services.
None of those proposals are panaceas. But if we’re going to stop the gap from continuing to widen, never mind ensuring it starts to narrow again, they’re the right place to start.
If the incoming Burnham government is serious about helping the next generation succeed, it should start by embracing the ambitions set out in the schools white paper – and commit to the changes needed to deliver them.
