Education Policy Institute

🚨For anyone that missed our 2025 Annual Lecture with Anna Vignoles CBE FBA looking at education and skills inequalities in the UK, you can now watch the recording here: https://lnkd.in/emkw74rW https://lnkd.in/eJdVE5SR With thanks to The British Academy for kindly hosting us.

Our Director for Post-16 and Skills David Robinson gave evidence to the Education Select Committee on Further Education and Skills today. He highlighted findings from our latest report on disadvantage gap and stressed the need to simplify Post-16 qualifications.

🚨New report: What pensions do teachers want? The latest report by the Education Policy Institute (EPI), explores whether providing more flexibility over teachers’ pensions and remuneration could support improved recruitment and retention in the profession. EPI collaborated with Teacher Tapp to survey nearly 6,000 teachers to find out what they want from their compensation package and how valuable the current Teachers Pension Scheme is to them.   You can download and read the full report 👇 https://lnkd.in/eKX6raUY Key findings below: The report finds that: 👉 Teachers prioritise immediate salary increases over retirement benefits. Teachers value a 10% increase in their retirement income only as much as a 6% increase in their current salary. 👉 A sizeable proportion of teachers would prefer more flexibility in their pension plans, with 15% of teachers willing to trade 20% of their pension income for a 10% salary increase. 👉 Younger teachers, particularly those in their twenties, are two-thirds more likely to trade pension for salary than teachers in their fifties. 👉 Teachers who are financially struggling are a quarter more likely to want to trade pension entitlement for salary than teachers who are financially comfortably. 👉 Teachers strongly prefer a guaranteed retirement income over income dependent on stock market performance. The report recommends that the government should: ☑️ Permit schools to offer pension options.   ☑️ Investigate the possibility of providing flexibility within TPS, such as the civil service pension scheme. ☑️ Conduct research on policy options.

🚨New event summary paper: What is needed from education policy to boost writing outcomes?   EPI partnered with Oxford University Press to discuss challenges preventing improvements in writing and how these can be overcome. You can read the full paper 👇 https://lnkd.in/eK2EDSHs

EPI announces new Chair. https://lnkd.in/eyEj6QaU

Today the Education Policy Institute published a latest report that investigates the drivers of the disadvantage gap and calls on the government to address the underlying causes of school absences, as it identifies higher levels of absence to be a key factor in the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers. You can download and the read the full report 👇 https://lnkd.in/eC4b_Pi3 Specifically, the report finds that: 👉Pupil absence is a key, and growing, driver of the disadvantage gap. If disadvantaged pupils had the same level of absence as their peers in 2023, the attainment gap at age 11 (of 10.1 months) would have been almost one month smaller and the gap at age 16 (of 18.6 months) would have been over four months smaller 👉The growth in the disadvantage gap at age 16 by 0.5 months since 2019 (to 18.6 months in 2023) can be entirely explained by higher levels of absence for disadvantaged pupils. 👉At each key stage, more than half of the gap is explained by the size of the gap in earlier phases. Our analysis finds that by age 7, nearly 60% of the gap at age 11 has already developed. 👉Disadvantaged students fall even further behind when they attend schools and colleges with lower-attaining intakes – this peer effect adds over 1 month to the GCSE gap in 2023, and a third of a grade to the 16-19 gap. 👉The attainment gap is widening for the youngest pupils with special educational needs, with pupils on SEN support in reception year falling 0.7 months behind their peers between 2019 and 2023. 👉The gender gap for GCSE students has narrowed during this period as boys are catching up, but this also reflects slower progress of girls during secondary schools. 👉The 16-19 disadvantage gap has changed little since 2019 but disadvantaged students have become less likely to continue education after the end of key stage 4. The report recommends that:  ☑️The government should prioritise early intervention to improve school readiness and reduce gaps throughout schooling, by increasing the early years pupil premium to match the pupil premium in later years, ensuring a high quality workforce and improving childcare accessibility for disadvantaged children in particular.  ☑️As part of wider SEND reforms, the government should prioritise training in child development and different types of SEND, making it a mandatory part of initial teacher training and early career development. ☑️The government should develop a new absence strategy which addresses its root causes and includes improved SEND identification, better mental health support in and outside of schools, and fostering pupils’ sense of school belonging. ☑️The government is due to publish its Child Poverty Strategy in Spring 2025. This should specifically consider centralising auto-enrolment for free school meals to ensure wider coverage, as well as abolishing the Two-Child Limit and the benefits cap.

💼JOB OPPORTUNITY: Media and Communications Manager We are  seeking a talented and motivated candidate to join our Communications, Partnerships & Events team as Media and Communications Manager. More information about the role and how to apply 👇 https://lnkd.in/eaH32Tt5

📄 Today, the Education Policy Institute (EPI), funded by Nuffield Foundation published a new report explores how long-term changes in education and employment outcomes vary across the four UK nation. The analysis covers the education and employment outcomes of individuals born across the UK from the late 1940s through to the late 1980s.  The report finds that: 👉 Scotland’s ‘Winter Leaving Rules’ require young people born between October and February to stay in school until at least Christmas of the following academic year, adding an extra 4-5 months of schooling. While this policy increases school attendance, it shows little to no benefit in terms of higher educational qualifications or employment outcomes. In fact, winter leavers are less likely to be in positive education or employment destinations than children who leave education at the end of academic years (e.g S4 and S5). 👉Closing of gender disparities – Women started with lower attainment rates than men but their attainment increased significantly over time. By the mid-1960s cohorts, the gender gap had disappeared, and in recent cohorts, women are as likely—if not more likely—than men to have Level 2 qualifications. 👉Scotland has consistently outperformed other UK nations in maintaining higher rates of Level 3 qualifications. Amongst those born in the 1980s, nearly 80 per cent of men and women in Scotland had Level 3 qualifications, which compares with about 70 per cent in England and Northern Ireland. 👉Wales lags behind on Level 3 qualifications. For those born in the 1980s, about 65-70% of women in Wales hold Level 3 qualifications. This is even lower for men, with about 60-65% of men in Wales born in the 1980s holding Level 3 qualifications. The report recommends that: ☑️ The Scottish government should abolish winter leaving rules, so that all students in the same cohort leave school at the same time. This could either be at the end of S4, or S5 if the Scottish Government wanted all children to stay in school longer. This would eliminate the disadvantage faced by winter leavers and simplify the system for students, parents, and educators alike. ☑️More active and urgent action is required in Wales. Policymakers in Wales should be taking more urgent and active steps to understand and improve post-16 educational outcomes and inequalities. Policymakers should ensure all young people in Wales have access to high-quality Level 3 qualifications. You can download and read the full report 👇 https://lnkd.in/eUc-7WXd

📄 Today, the Education Policy Institute (EPI), funded by Nuffield Foundation, published a new report exploring the strengths & weaknesses of Free School Meals (FSM) and Pupil Premium (PP) as measures for identifying disadvantaged pupils in England. The report finds that 👉 There are fewer children registered for FSM than estimated to be in poverty. This is due to a number of factors including the low-income threshold (£7,400 per year), under-registration, and eligibility rules that ignore factors like housing costs and family size. 👉 Under-registration for FSM is especially high among younger primary children and seems to be higher in more deprived local authorities, meaning support is not always reaching the children who need it most. 👉 The gap between the number of children living in poverty and the number of children registered for FSM or receiving the PP is especially noticeable for children from certain communities, including those from Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Indian backgrounds. In these groups, poverty rates are much higher than FSM or PP registration suggests, meaning many children in need may not be receiving adequate support. 👉 Children who miss periods of school are less likely to access FSM. The report recommends that ☑️  The government should conduct updated studies using linked cross-government data to find out how many eligible children are not claiming FSM or registered for PP ☑️ The government should expand the coverage of FSM eligibility, remove the current restrictions on FSM eligibility for pre-school children, increase the salary threshold for families, and provide sufficient funding. ☑️ The government should consider centrally automatically enrolling eligible children for FSM to ensure better coverage, especially for younger children. ☑️ Researchers and policymakers should consider ethnicity and language background alongside FSM and PP, for example when comparing the experiences and outcomes of FSM/PP children to their peers. You can read the detailed findings and full report 👇 https://lnkd.in/eprqw7Sk

💼JOB OPPORTUNITY: Executive and Events Officer We’re looking for a talented and motivated candidate to join our Communications, Events and Partnerships team as an Executive and Events Officer. More information on the role and how to apply👇 https://lnkd.in/eymAHSJ6