Sir Peter Lampl has supported Sir Michael Wilshaw’s calls for more support for highly able pupils.
Critical
Speaking to the Times Education Supplement, Sir Michael said that the performance of the brightest pupils in England’s non-selective state schools is critical to the success of the country.
Sir Peter Lampl is the chairman of the Sutton Trust which aims to improve the country’s social mobility through education. He told the TES that Sir Michael was “absolutely right”.
“We have shown in our research how this ‘missing talent’ means that a third of disadvantaged boys and a quarter of disadvantaged girls in the top 10 per cent nationally at age 11 are outside the top 25 per cent by their GCSEs,” Sir Peter said.
Closing the gap
Sir Michael said that testing pupils during key stage 1 and 2 has helped close the attainment gap between disadvantaged and advantaged students, however due to a lack of testing during key stage 3 thousands of children who succeeded in primary school are not reaching their full potential during secondary school.
“Those who indulge in moaning and whingeing about national testing need to remember that when standards decline, it is the most disadvantaged pupils who suffer the most,” Sir Michael told added.
“It is surely no coincidence that the attainment gap starts to widen again during the secondary school phase.”
Sir Michael believes bright children are being allowed to drift through the first few years of secondary school in the absence of any formal testing; an opinion which is shared by Sir Peter.
Waste
Sir Michael refers to the above period as “the wasted years” and research from the watchdog would support this. 68% of pupils at non-selective secondary schools who achieved a level 5 or above in both English and mathematics at the end of primary school failed to attain A* or A grades in the subjects at GCSE last year.
The Sutton Trust and Education Endowment Foundation hosted a summit last year to discuss the attainment gap in UK schools: http://www.suttontrust.com/newsarchive/mind-the-gap/
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