Sir Michael Wilshaw warned late last year that that too many of the country’s underperforming schools are located in the north and the midlands.
Inequality
Sir Peter Lampl, who campaigns to improve social mobility through education, told the Financial Times: “We urgently need a national drive to reduce educational inequalities and improve social mobility.”
According to Sir Michael, 410,000 children in the north and the midlands attend a secondary school that is below Ofsted’s ‘good’ rating. He called upon the north’s large cities such as Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield to help satellite towns raise attainment and improve their young people’s skills.
“The facts are stark,” Sir Michael told the FT. “Compared to secondary school children in the south, those in the north and the midlands on average make less progression in English and maths, perform worse at GCSE and attain fewer top grades at A-level.”
Divide
Based on GCSE results in 2014, the proportion of students achieving five or more A* to -C grades at GCSE in the north was amongst the lowest in England.
Just over half (54.9%) achieved the grades, almost two percentage points below the national average (56.8%) and quite some way behind the London average of 61.5%.
Improvements
Stephen Gorard of Durham University argued that London’s relative success at secondary school level had come in an era of relative prosperity and good funding. He says that only extra money would help improve schools in the north and midlands.
“It is not reasonable to expect other and poorer parts of England, such as the North East, to achieve the same without the same funding,” he said.
The Sutton Trust runs a number of summer schools to help combat educational inequality. To learn more about what the Trust’s summer schools offer, please visit: http://summerschools.suttontrust.com/
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