Leadership

“A quarter of adults in England do not have basic functional numeracy or literacy skills to get on life. This extrapolates to around 10 million unskilled adults across Britain.” (The Sutton Trust, 2018)

Growing up, I was frequently told that education was the greatest social leveller of us all.  Yet, does our education system in 2025 stand up to this supposed ideal?  Arguably not.  This is particularly the case when we explore the voices of those who feel and have experienced a system that has excluded them.  At a time when Ofsted has produced a new inspection framework (Ofsted, 2025) which is anchored in the idea of ‘Inclusion’ and Sir Martyn Oliver has announced the broadening of the term vulnerability to encompass a greater range of criteria and experiences (Schools Week, 2025), it feels apt to explore what further could be done to ensure that education is equitable and that is fosters a sense of belonging.

The current state of play 

There are multiple metrics and demographic lenses that can be examined that will help to highlight the lack of equity in education across England across the many phases and key stages.  One such example includes looking at GCSE data through the lens of socio-economic and geographical region which would tell us that in 2025 ‘28.4% of pupils in London achieved grade 7 or above (down 0.1pp from last year), compared to 17.8% in the North East (unchanged since last year)’ (The Sutton Trust, 2025).  If we were to explore national outcomes further using GCSE and A Level data, we would find that gaps exist between Pupil Premium (PP) and non-PP students, Free School Meal (FSM) and non-FSM students, gender, ethnicity and race and so on.  

Similar gaps are also seen in EYFS and primary schools.  If we were to explore ethnicity, EYFS data highlights that ‘most lower-attaining ethnic groups saw their gaps widen in 2024 compared with 2019, most notably among Black African, pupils of Any Other Black background and Black Caribbean pupils (who fell further behind White British pupils by at least 0.8 months)’ (Education Policy Institute, 2025).  Moreover, that by age 11 ‘the low attainment levels of Gypsy Roma and Traveller of Irish Heritage pupils are also significant’ (Education Policy Institute, 2025).  In short, there is a systemic and continuous lack of equity within education that impacts students from EYFS to age 19.  There is no use in proportioning blame to any particular phase (because that’s not possible, or helpful), so instead we should consider how collaboration can be powerful if we are to tackle core pillars of ensuring education results in success for all at every stage.     

What is noticeable about the mountains of data that can be found which focus on protected characteristics and socio-economic or geographical status is that it seems to be very binary, with cohorts of children grouped together as one homogenous whole under different umbrella ‘labels’.  This is not always useful.  Mccrae et al (2025) have recently published a discussion paper which highlights the issues that diagnostic overshadowing causes with effective SEND provision within mainstream schools, and the paper acts as a worthy caution about the issues of ‘labels before children’ as an approach to education.  

As we know, each child is unique and will experience their own set of individual barriers.  These barriers can often be intersectional and cannot be reduced to a singular metric alone with generic hypothesise then made about the reason for an attainment gap.  I’ll give an example: I was a girl who grew up in a rural setting in the North East, who refused to read at age 4, who had a difficult transition to secondary school, had varying economic experiences throughout her younger life and moved home frequently, had divorced parents, and lived through multiple family traumas.  What do we expect that my outcomes were?  Do we follow the rabbit hole of my gender (girl) and assume that my outcomes were strong?  Or do we follow the joint rabbit hole of ‘rural’ and ‘North East’ and assume that my outcomes were poor, particularly compared to peers living in more affluent, suburban and southern areas of the country?  I cannot fathom how my outcomes (the answer is, they were very positive) could be reduced to a category of ‘girl’ and my outcomes be explained using generic assumptions of success based on this.  In the year that I took my GCSEs, there were 2,868,818 female GCSE entries.  So, to explore reasons for my outcomes through the same lens as a girl growing up in central London in an affluent household in continuous provision from EYFS to Year 13 would be unhelpful.  Yet, that is currently how we analyse data and make assumptions about what should be done to close the attainment gap.  There has got to be a better way for us to examine such rich mines of data in a way that draws in the experiences of individual students that help us to see beyond lazy generalisations and flawed attempts at interventions.  

One such body that has done this is The Global Equality Collective who have produced a thorough report (The Research — Global Equality Collective) detailing the views of 26,000 respondents across thirty countries and therefore it is unique in how it draws together intersectional data.  As part of their research, they were able to unpick the narratives behind why attainment gaps exist for children by seeing out their lived experiences and then create an Inclusion Index.  Examples include their findings that ‘one third of Black students report feeling that their ethnic identity is not valued or recognised in the curriculum, leading to feelings of disengagement with the content and their sense of belonging’ and that only ‘around 41.3% agree that they feel “seen” in the curriculum. Of those students that disagree, SEND, Global Majority, and LGBTQIA+ students feel most excluded and disengaged’ (Global Equality Collective, 2025)  Through the appreciation of the kaleidoscope of experiences that young people have at multiple different points in their educational career using reports such as this, we can better understand the unique barriers of individual students and use these to draw together evidence-led policy changed and initiatives which are going to drive equity and ensure that education is an equal playing field for all.

What might those evidence-led changes be?

My thesis for my PhD, which focuses on equity and equality in education, argues that there are multiple pillars (Fig. 1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LlzsZ9avhS-uZbvkkDIO4_CSG6B3qMsK/view?usp=drive_link ) of educational provision which can help to foster a sense of belonginess and ensure true inclusion.  These pillars are not ‘stand alone islands’ and instead they must act in an inter-connected way, each one supporting the other in supporting the pediment of equity.

Pillar 1: Curriculum.  Decolonised, diverse, ambitious, underpinned by rich texts and rooted in high expectations.  Curriculum continuity from Year 1 to Year 13

Pillar 2: Teaching and Learning.  High expectations of all, inclusive strategies (e.g. inclusive questioning, responsive, scaffolded, teach to the top)

Pillar 3: Literacy and oracy.  Literacy and oracy gap chased down and closed through tiered provision (whole school, targeted, specialist) informed by diagnostic testing.

Pillar 4: Pastoral systems and initiatives.  Hygiene banks, collaborative work with cultural institutions, PD which fosters a culture of belonging

Pillar 5: Strong leadership.  Clear vision and structures in place to support equitable education, teachers and Middle Leaders trained and empowered to tackle disadvantage

The full detail and examination of the pillars are detailed in my thesis and so this blog will act as a short summary of two of those pillars: curriculum and teaching and learning.  

Pillar 1: Curriculum

My argument is that to tackle issues such as the transition gap (which is larger in some regions than others) and to foster a sense of belonging, we must adjust the curriculum from EYFS-Year 13.  At the time of writing this blog, the Curriculum Assessment Review has not yet been published.  However, the interim report (DfE, 2025) states that:

As well as making sure that children and young people can see themselves represented in the curriculum, it will be important that we also make sure they encounter the unfamiliar, and have their horizons stretched and broadened; representation does not and must not mean restriction to only some frames of reference for particular children or groups of children. Inclusion is also prompted by shared experiences, the creation of connections, and the ability to see and experience a wide range of perspectives. Clearly there is a need to appropriately balance the requirement to ensure coherence and efficacy in the curriculum with inclusivity; while also ensuring we do not detract from the importance and impact of what is currently taught.

From this, we can appreciate that our curriculum would benefit from becoming more globalised in its content.  That’s not to say to throw the baby out with the bathwater and start from scratch but instead explore where conversations can take place which broaden the lens of representation and identify where we can meaningfully carve out curriculum space to bring these narratives to the forefront.  Taking History at KS3 as an example, it would of course be sensible to retain aspects of British history such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norman Conquest, key monarchs, the Glorious Revolution and the Industrial Revolution.  However, within those existing topics we could broaden it so that learn more about the experiences of ‘ordinary’ people (as in peasantry in the medieval period and working class in later periods), women, disabled people and Black Tudors and many more.  This would result in lessons where students become more adept at ‘reading against the grain’ with sources and it would create the conditions whereby they can engage with scholarship, such as Hallie Rubenhold’s ‘The Five’ (2019) and David Olusoga’s ‘Black and British’ (2021), to better appreciate how history is a verb and that new interpretations emerge over time.  Moreover, by globalising our curriculum better, we can explore topics that are incredibly vital to our understanding of the world and British history that have often not been included in the ‘traditional canon’ of the study of the past, such as The Silk Roads, West African Kingdoms (particularly important if later studying the Trans-Atlantic Enslavement Trade later in the curriculum) and South-East Asian history. Counsell’s work perfectly brings this to life in ‘Changing Histories’ which has focused on tackling this ‘mono-narrative’ and can be succinctly summed up as ensuring that children learn that ‘Britain is a part of the world, and not the centre of it’ (2019)  For me, this would enable students to better appreciate our rich and interconnected global history, as well as engender representation and promote a greater understanding of cultures and their past.  Moreover, this helps our curriculum to evolve from using just ‘key dates/months’ to share diverse narratives, and instead embed them as part of the curriculum, thus helping to avoid ‘othering.’  

Linked to this is curriculum continuity and how we can ensure that as children move between different phases and educational institutions, we can create the conditions for joined up thinking which result in high expectations and an ambitious curriculum for all.  In my experience as someone who has worked in secondary only and then in an all-through school, I hold my hands up to recognising that for too long I had a poverty of expectations about what children knew and could do by the time they crossed the threshold into my classroom in Year 7.  There is much data available that demonstrates how a disconnect of understanding between primary and secondary phases contributes to a transition gap whereby the attainment and a sense of belonging of our students drops.  Too often, it is children from underserved communities that feel the impact of this the most.  Instead, if we can cultivate opportunities for primary and secondary colleagues to work together to map a curriculum narrative across the key stages and delve deep into what content is studied when and what skills are developed at which point, those who receive the children in later years can better pitch their curriculum in terms of being ambitious.  Again, in history, what might that look like?  (Fig. 2) Given the National Curriculum gives ample space for interpretation of which topics to study; content can sometimes be tricky to map across primary and into secondary.  However, there are mechanisms in place whereby forums can be established and digital forms can be completed which would help to better pinpoint what is being studied in primaries and when (and I say that as someone who was in a Trust with 30 primaries in) in order for secondary to pick up the threads studied earlier and continue the narrative.  Moreover, in history, we can find common ground when looking at age and stage expected outcomes when it comes to a skills progression model (Fig. 3).  This too can help to create more ambitious lessons later in a student’s educational career as teachers can be better versed at knowing what foundations have been put into place in advance, rather than assuming a ground zero approach which results in either repeated or ‘dumbed down’ content.  We must get better at visiting different key stage classrooms across primary, secondary and Further Education and finding out more about the depth and quality of what is taught to better appreciate the brilliance that our children bring with them to our own doors.  

Fig 2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z70UWh9hyzPM_UXf0qt7gBhMh_h11bFi/view?usp=drive_link 

Fig 3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aVuYr74X8F4nq_e24R80t8eMsdBADE-z/view?usp=drive_link 

Finally,  a further key aspect draws upon the fantastic work that Mary Myatt (2024) has been discussing for years: ensuring that curriculums are underpinned by rich texts.  For the reading gap to close, we must ensure that students are continuously exposed to rich texts containing ambitious vocabulary.  Such texts, when supported by strategies such as teacher-led modelled reading and echo reading, place storytelling and narratives at the centre of learning.  By implementing an approach across the curriculum where powerful texts are included meaningfully within lessons with strategic reading strategies alongside them, we can develop the reading, writing and speaking skills of all students.  Obviously, there are students with below expected reading ages that (once diagnostically tested) require targeted interventions and specific scaffolding within lessons, but by ensuring that there is consistent engagement with rich texts as a whole-class strategy we can contribute to raising the reading ages of all before us.  This is particularly important for our underserved children and for those who might not have much exposure to reading beyond the school gates (for a range of reasons).  From this, pillar 2 (teaching and learning) and pillar 3 (literacy and oracy) are interconnected with pillar 1 terms of the delivery of the texts but also the wider school culture and interventions that need to take place to ensure high standards of literacy and oracy provision.  

The right to read, write and talk is a fundamental necessity and fosters inclusion through the communication of knowledge, ideas, thoughts and emotions.  This is why, for me, pillar 5: strong leadership, is massively important as this will require leaders to be unapologetic in their drive to ensure that literacy and oracy are the bedrock of the curriculum and that they commit time to developing staff who are empowered to achieving this aim, anchored in a culture of no children leaving education at 16 being below their expected reading age.  

Pillar 2: Teaching and Learning (T&L)

The implementation of the curriculum is massively important in terms of ensuring that we use inclusive strategies that ensure that we check for the progress of all students and create the conditions for all to succeed.  Over the past few years, there has been a change of approach in terms to how we deploy T&L strategies so that we are more evidence-led and are ‘responsive’ to student needs.  Whilst admirable, these positive developments have sometimes been bogged down in a lack of knowledge as to what responsive/adaptive teaching is (beyond the Ofsted wording), the imposition of whole-school generic strategies to ensure compliance and conformity, and because of the former a lack of subject specific professional learning opportunities.  This must change as adaptive teaching rooted in an ethos of ‘teaching to the top’ is vital to ensuring that we are being ambitious with what the children who sit before us can learn.  Rachel Ball and I have written at length about the importance of scaffolding as a T&L strategy (The Scaffolding Effect, 2025) and the below surmises many of our arguments about why it creates the conditions for equitable learning and high expectations for all.  

Generally, we have begun to move away from the era of tiered learning objectives and “they’ll never be able to do that” to better appreciating the importance of not creating a curriculum of the privileged and excluding students from accessing a feeling of challenge.  However, we must be prepared to invest significant in time in working within our schools to codify high-leverage T&L strategies such as inclusive questioning, scaffolding and continuous checks for understanding which are then developed through a subject specific and/or age expected lens so that practitioners have the expertise to exercise their agency when deploying these parts of their T&L toolkit day in day out.  

Moreover, we must ensure that every teacher becomes increasingly skilled at pinpointing the sweet spot of ‘desirable difficulties’ (Bjork, 1994) in creating ‘satisfyingly challenging’ lessons alongside knowing what the individual barriers are that children will need scaffolds to overcome.  This links back to the discussion paper by Mccrae et al (2025) which talks about truly knowing our students and not purely seeing labels.  Instead, it should be about how we become skilled at using the data that we have about our students (such as attendance, FSM status, prior attainment etc) to forensically anticipate what scaffolds are going to be the most effective for that student, whilst keeping our pitch high.  Then, within the lesson, using our inclusive checks for understanding to adapt.  The error has been in the past that we have often seen those barriers and lowered our expectations, so that we expect less of students and so will then strip out content or give an easier task to complete.  However, all this does is exacerbate the attainment gap by denying some students the opportunity to achieve the same goals as their peers and access the same enriching curriculum content.  For true inclusion to exist, we need to not fall foul of the bias and unconscious bias that discussion papers such as Mccrae’s (2025) outline and instead take time to do the work to acknowledge those biases and then change our mindset about what children can do (irrespective of their starting points and backgrounds) and how to ensure that they experience success.  This is how equitable and therefore equal education can be achieved; by creating a toolkit of high-leverage, inclusive T&L strategies which teachers have the agency and expertise to know how and when to deploy.

What next?

In terms of what the next steps are, some things are tied to external factors such as the outcome of the Curriculum and Assessment Review (CAR) and the resulting changes that will ripple through future changes to the National Curriculum and examination specifications.  My hope is that a wide range of stakeholder voices will be called upon to meaningfully contribute to the implementation of the CAR outcomes to avoid missing an opportunity to ensure that a more globalised, ambitious curriculum is outlined.  From this, I think it would be prudent for leaders to examine literature surrounding representation and inclusion (beyond just the new Ofsted framework, as this will result in a surface level tick list approach) so that the reforms are implemented through a lens which is going to ensure that children and their barriers are truly recognised and understood.

Added to this, leaders must work with their teachers, the SENDCo, designated teacher, pastoral and learning support teams to put into place a chunked, sequential subject and/or age/stage professional learning programme that places inclusion at the centre of it.  By creating a shared T&L vision, rooted in inclusion, and then working together to pinpoint effective T&L strategies which are focused in on one by one as yearly golden threads of focus, we can hopefully move the dial closer towards equity for all.  

Note: It must be noted that I am not a specialist in Alternative Provision nor Specialist Schools settings, and so my thesis focused on mainstream provision.  I do believe that the pillars can also apply to those settings, but there are those more versed and expert than me who can better translate them so that the nuances are explored appropriately.

References

Ball, R. and Fairlamb, A. (2025) The Scaffolding Effect.  Supporting All Students to Succeed.  (London: Routledge)

Bjork, R. A. (1994). Memory and metamemory considerations in the training of human beings. In J. Metcalfe and A. Shimamura (Eds.), Metacognition: Knowing about knowing (pp. 185–205). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Cambridge Assessment (2009) GCSE Uptake and Results, by Gender 2002-2007, Statistics Report Series No. 13.  Available online at: GCSE Uptake and Results, by Gender 2002-2007. [Accessed on 29.10.25]

Counsell, C. (2019) Schools History Project Conference

Department for Education (2025) Curriculum and Assessment Review Interim Report.  Available online at: Curriculum and Assessment Review: interim report.  [Accessed on 29.10.25]

Global Equality Collective (2025) The Inclusion Index.  Tracking the issues most affecting inclusion and belonging in schools.  Available online at: https://www.thegec.education/the-gec-inclusion-index?hsCtaAttrib=188813083675. [Accessed on 29.10.25]

Mccrae, P., Barker, J., and Goodrich, J. (2025) Inclusive Teaching—Securing Strong Educational Experiences and Outcomes for All Students. Available online at: Inclusive Teaching: A New Approach for SEND Challenges [Accessed on 29.10.25]

Myatt, M. (2024) Not all books are the same, Myatt&Co Online.  Available online at: Not all books are the same – by Mary Myatt – Curriculum 101 [Accessed on 29.10.25]

Olusoga, D. (2021) Black and British: A Forgotten History (London: Picador)

Rubenhold, H. (2019) The Five.  The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper.  (New York City: Doubleday)

The Sutton Trust (2018) Britain’s dying dream of social mobility.  Available online at: Britain’s dying dream of social mobility – The Sutton Trust [Accessed on 29.10.25]

The Sutton Trust (2025) Sutton Trust response to GCSE Results Day 2025.  Available online at: Sutton Trust response to GCSE Results Day 2025 – The Sutton Trust [Accessed on 29.10.25]

Whittaker, F. (2025) Ofsted research proposes definition of pupil ‘vulnerability’, Schools Week (Online) Available online at: Ofsted research proposes definition of pupil ‘vulnerability’, [Accessed on 29.10.25]