A former government adviser has warned there is a “risk” that the “positive story” around school improvement in recent decades “masks a growing array of challenges” facing the sector.
Sam Freedman, who worked at the Department for Education under Michael Gove, also warned it was “hard to see how many of the challenges schools face – from teacher recruitment through to a run-down school estate – will be fixed without investment”.
In a paper for social mobility charity The Sutton Trust, Freedman, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government and adviser to Ark Schools, examined 20 years of school reform in England.
He said decades of reform had “led to real improvements in standards, at least for maths, according to international tests, as well as a big increase in the numbers with post-16 qualifications and a much better reputation for schools.
“Compared to other public services this is a success story. But the risk is that a relatively positive story masks a growing array of challenges, especially around the lives of the most vulnerable pupils, and the impact this is having on schools and colleges.”
‘Very little money is available’
Chancellor Rachel Reeves will set out her first budget on Wednesday, and over the weekend vowed to “protects education priorities”.
Although she has pledged to increase school rebuilding funding to £1.4 billion next year, it is not yet clear whether school revenue funding will increase.
The Labour government has since taking office warned of a £22 billion black hole in the country’s finances left behind by the Conservatives, and warned it faces tough choices.
Freedman warned the new government faced an “array of challenges across almost every policy area, including across the school system.
“However, due to both the wider economic situation and political choices made by the new government, very little money is available to pay for solutions.
“It is hard to see how many of the challenges schools face – from teacher recruitment through to a run-down school estate – will be fixed without investment.”
He also warned “other challenges facing schools, including a lack of resources to support SEND students, increasing mental health issues and behaviour problems, also pose ongoing issues for government”.
Real-terms cuts and ‘aggressive’ accountability
Looking back at 20 years of reform, Freedman pointed to real-terms cuts to school and college funding, with post-16 worst-affected, and teacher pay.
He also said the establishment of multi-academy trusts had been a “major policy change”, and while some have been “highly successful”, others have struggled.
“Over time more and more schools joined MATs which offered additional support and funding security in return for ceding some control.
“They became major players in the school system almost by stealth, and their purpose has never been clearly legally defined, or elucidated by government.”
The last 20 years have also seen a “much more aggressive” approach to accountability, and over time schools have “inevitably looked to game the metrics, and as budgets have been squeezed, these accountability measures have been tougher for schools to handle”.
Tories abandoned focus on poorer pupils
There had been “major focus on socio-economic disadvantage” under New Labour and the coalition government.
But in the final years of the Conservative government “there was a reversal of this focus, with changes to the funding formula directing funding to schools with better-off intakes, and a failure of pupil premium funding to keep pace with inflation”.
Freedman warned there had been “no real progress” in closing the attainment gap between poorer young people and their better-off peers. There was some progress before Covid but the pandemic “;ed to a loss of all the gains made since 2011”.
These challenges “stand alongside wider issues related to child poverty, with relative child poverty falling in the UK before 2010, before following a broadly upward trend until 2020”.
Sutton Trust founder Sir Peter Lampl said: “The biggest education failure of the last government was to make little progress in tackling the gap in attainment between low-income pupils and their peers.
“The Conservatives lost their focus on disadvantage. It’s hugely damaging for both young people and the country that the talent of so many youngsters is being wasted.”
He said Labour “says it will break down barriers to opportunity but as yet, there is no sense that the scale of investment and policy action needed to deliver this will be forthcoming. We cannot allow another decade to pass without progress.”
