A review of education policies of the last two decades by education expert Sam Freedman, published today by the Sutton Trust, sets out a raft of major questions and challenges to address for the Government in the coming years.

According to the report, there are three major challenges facing the sector today – challenges which have been exacerbated by funding reductions under the Coalition and Conservative governments, and a lack of political direction in education policy, particularly in recent years.

These are:

  • Failure to make progress on closing the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their better off peers. Despite a major focus on socio-economic disadvantage from the New Labour government in the early 2000s, into the 2010s with the Coalition (including the introduction of the Pupil Premium, to target funds at lower income students), the final years of the Conservative government saw a reversal of this focus, with changes to the funding formula directing funding to schools with better-off intakes, and pupil premium funding failed to keep pace with inflation. There has been a gap of around 20 percentage points between pupils eligible for Free School Meals and their peers in GCSE pass rates over the past 20 years.
  • The decimation of post-16 education. Post-16 education has seen some of the largest budget cuts in education, with spending on colleges down 10% between 2010 and 2024, and sixth forms down 23%. During the same period, there has been a fall in teaching time post-16, and a fall in the number of qualifications taken.
  • A reduction in pastoral support for young people. Children’s Trusts, established under the New Labour Government, aiming to integrate broader children’s service to improve child protection, health and wellbeing, were scrapped by the Coalition Government alongside cuts in funding to wider support services. Combined with the effects of the pandemic, higher levels of destitution, and wider challenges with mental health and special needs, this has created a crisis for vulnerable children. teachers have increasingly had to cover this gap, leading to more burnout and worse retention. We have also seen a big jump in the numbers missing school and being suspended for poor behaviour in the last few years.

Looking beyond the last decade, the establishment of multi academy trusts (MATs), which started under Labour, has been one of the major policy changes of the last 20 years, with responsibility for many schools moved away from local authorities (LAs) and into these bodies. While some MATs have been highly successful, others have struggled. The author, Sam Freedman, says that MATs became major players in the school system “almost by stealth”, and their purpose has never been clearly legally defined.

The last 20 years have also seen changes in accountability mechanisms for schools, with a much more aggressive approach first introduced by New Labour and continued under subsequent governments. However, 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.

When it comes to pupils’ outcomes, England is a strong performer internationally. In the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), for reading England is the highest performing European country, while for maths it is second only to Northern Ireland. In the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), England is also one of the highest performing European countries, although largely due to a greater drop off in performance in other countries, rather than improved performance here. The author points to the strong performance of immigrant students in the UK compared to elsewhere in Western Europe as a potential factor. However, on science, there is evidence for a fall in performance over this period in international tests, probably related to primary school tests for science being dropped by the last Labour government.

The Sutton Trust says that the current Government must learn the lessons from the last two decades of education policy, particularly if it is to meet its aim of tackling educational inequality and breaking down barriers to opportunity – an objective that successive governments have failed to meet.

The author highlights a number of major questions that the Government will need to answer if progress is to be made, including: where best to focus efforts to tackle disadvantage; the role schools should play in supporting pupils with social, emotional and behavioural problems; and how to find the substantial investment that is desperately needed to tackle issues such as teacher recruitment and the crumbling schools estate. While some of the challenges they face are conceptually straightforward, he says there is very little money to pay for solutions, “partly due to their own political choices”.

Sir Peter Lampl, Founder of the Sutton Trust and Founder of the Education Endowment Foundation, 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. The Labour Government 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. The Government should rebalance the National Funding Formula and increase Pupil Premium Funding.  The priority is to deal with the teacher recruitment crisis, caused principally by working from home which makes teaching much less attractive than other occupations.”