The Social Mobility Commission’s ‘State of the Nation’ report highlights the “hotspots” and “cold spots” for social mobility found in all regions.

Commenting on the findings, Sir Peter Lampl, Founder and Chairman of the Sutton Trust, said:

“Today’s report presents a worrying and complex regional divide in the chances of getting on in today’s Britain. It shows that a patchy picture – first uncovered in the Sutton Trust Mobility Map in 2015  – with London socially mobile and much less mobility elsewhere in the country.

“It is vital that we focus on providing quality education in the early years, so that disadvantaged children gain the developmental skills they need to succeed.

“We need to make sure that children have access to high quality teaching by recruiting more good teachers and most importantly raising the game of the 450,000 teachers already employed. The Education Endowment Foundation’s Research Schools are playing an important role in doing this in the government’s Opportunity Areas, regions where social mobility is very low. They’re helping to break down barriers so that research doesn’t stay on the pages of academic journals but has a real impact in the classroom.”

NOTES TO EDITORS

  1. The Sutton Trust is a foundation set up in 1997, dedicated to improving social mobility through education. It has published over 200 research studies and funded and evaluated programmes that have helped hundreds of thousands of young people of all ages, from early years through to access to the professions.
  2. The Sutton Trust’s Social Mobility Index, published in April 2015 and presented in an interactive mobility map, ranks each parliamentary constituency in England according to five measures of social mobility through education. Looking at outcomes from the early years through to professional life, the data shows how well each constituency is doing in improving prospects for their most disadvantaged young people.
  3. The Research Schools Network is a collaboration between the EEF and the Institute for Effective Education (IEE) to fund a network of schools which will support the use of evidence to improve teaching practice. Research Schools are focal-points for evidence-based practice in their region, building affiliations with large numbers of schools, and supporting the use of evidence at scale. There are currently 22 Research Schools, 11 of them supporting schools in the Opportunity Areas (government-designated social mobility ‘coldspots’). All have been appointed following a competitive application process.

 

Sir Peter Lampl’s response was covered by Public Finance and TES.