The government’s schools white paper, The Importance of Teaching, proposed substantial changes to how teachers are trained and recruited; to reform school funding to channel more resources towards the poorest pupils; to introduce a new ‘English Baccalaureate’ to be awarded to pupils who attain A*–C GCSEs in English, maths, science, a humanity and a modern language; and to initiate a wide-ranging reform of the national curriculum.
The Insitute for Public Policy Research report, ‘Room for Improvement’ focuses on how these measures address the attainment gap that exists between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and children from wealthier families.
Under the new system being launched, schools will be measured on the basis of how many pupils get good GCSEs in five designated subjects – English, maths, science, a language and a humanity. Under the previous system schools were ranked on their results across a wider range of subjects. But ippr analysis shows that these reforms to league tables are likely to encourage schools to focus their resources on more affluent pupils.
Latest figures (2009) show that only 26.6 per cent of pupils eligible for free school meals achieved 5 or more A*–C grade GCSEs or equivalent including English and Maths, compared to 54.2 per cent of pupils not eligible for free school meals – an attainment gap of 27.6 percentage points.
Only 13.9 per cent of pupils eligible for free school meals achieved A*–C in a modern foreign language, compared to 30.4 per cent of pupils not eligible for free school meals – an attainment gap of 16.5 percentage points.
Only 34 per cent of pupils eligible for free school meals achieved 2 A*–C grades in science subjects, compared to 57 per cent of pupils not eligible for free school meals – an attainment gap of 23 percentage points.
View the full report here: http://www.ippr.org.uk/publicationsandreports/publication.asp?id=794.