Emine Saner highlighted Sutton Trust research on private tuition in a Guardian piece on the North-South education divide

Blame the parents. According to Anne Longfield, the children’s commissioner, one reason that there is a gap in educational attainment between teenagers in the north and the south is because northern parents are not as pushy as their southern counterparts. Apparently, there just isn’t the same appetite for Mandarin lessons, excellence in the hockey team or whatever other stereotype has been thrown at pushy mothers (and it is mothers who are overwhelmingly judged, of course).

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Here, then, is a guide to how to be a pushy southern parent to help your northern child:

Get your child a private tutor

According to the Sutton Trust, 42% of state-educated children in London have had private tuition, compared with 13% in the north-west and 16% in Yorkshire. Obviously, you’ll need a better-paid job to pay for it, so question why George Osborne’s promised “northern powerhouse” seems to have stalled, why growth in London is twice that of the north, and why net wealth across the UK is rising, but has fallen in the north-east. Those extra-curricular maths lessons won’t pay for themselves.

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Read the full article here. There was also coverage in the Daily Mail and inews