One of the messages the education secretary was keen to get across during her media round on A-level results was the government’s commitment to tackling the “yawning inequalities” in educational attainment in England.
Bridget Phillipson, a Sunderland MP who grew up in the north-east, is all too well aware of educational disadvantage and how some regions are worse affected than others. In the run-up to results day, she has made a point of drawing attention to poor exam outcomes for students from white working-class backgrounds.
She says the government’s “plan for change”, which includes reformed early years and revitalised family services, alongside wider efforts to tackle disadvantage such as expanding free school meals and free breakfast clubs, will help address inequalities. But is it enough to bring about real change?
Regional disparities in education are nothing new, but what has concerned experts is that this year’s results reveal that the gap between the strongest and weakest performing areas in England has grown even wider.
The gap in A and A* grades between the highest performing area, London, where almost a third of students got at least an A, and the north-east, which remains the lowest performing, has grown to 9.2 percentage points – the widest regional gap since at least 2019.
While in the capital, 32.1% of A-level entries were awarded A or A*, up from 31.3% in 2024, in the north-east the proportion of top grades dropped from 23.9% in 2024 to 22.9%. The West Midlands is the other region in England with a year-on-year drop in top grades – down from 24.8% to 24.2%.
England’s exams regulator, Ofqual, said that the differences in grades between schools within regions was actually larger than the aggregated differences between regions. Nevertheless, the chief regulator, Sir Ian Bauckham, said he shared the sector’s disappointment at the widening gap and welcomed Phillipson’s focus on the issue.
According to experts, persistent poverty, deep-rooted structural inequalities and the long-tail of Covid are all contributing to the divide. Chris Zarraga, the director of Schools North East, which represents more than 1,150 schools in the region, said: “North-east students have done brilliantly again this year, but the structural gap between our region and London has grown yet again.
“This is not about school quality. Every August, our students prove their talent and determination. But we cannot keep pretending the gap [between the north-east and London] is about standards. It is about deep-rooted structural inequalities that no government has seriously addressed. Without urgent, sustained action to tackle them, the gap will keep widening, and it will not be because our students or teachers are any less capable.”
Henri Murison, the chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, also blamed “significant and deep-seated regional disparities” for the attainment gap. Students who chose not to do A-levels or underperform “do so as a result of their background, including coming from a disadvantaged family”, he said.
“The pandemic has had long-lasting consequences and the grades our young people are using to apply for the most competitive university or apprenticeship places remain lower than those in regions such as London.” The gulf between university application rates in London and the north-east has grown from 19% to 26%.
So what needs to be done? The partnership has called for pupil premium – which targets additional funding at students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds – to be restored to its full real-terms value, with a top-up for persistently disadvantaged children. There have also been calls for pupil premium to be extended to 16- to 19-year-olds.
Natalie Perera, the chief executive of the Education Policy Institute, said: “We can’t ignore the fact that one of the main drivers is the higher and more persistent poverty in some areas.” Perera also called for “targeted investment in high quality teaching at all stages of education and, crucially, a fully funded cross-government child poverty strategy”.
She added: “The other thing we know that makes a real difference is the quality of teachers. We know from our own research that schools in disadvantaged areas particularly outside London struggle to recruit high-quality, highly qualified teachers.”
Perera suggested there should be financial incentives to attract top teachers to schools serving disadvantaged communities. She also proposed incentives for schools to reduce exclusions, which disproportionately affect disadvantaged children.
Is the government doing enough to close the gaps? “Not yet,” said Perera.
