Recommendation 1

HM Government Accepted

The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation. The Department for Education strongly agrees too many children are held back by their background, with gaps between disadvantaged children and their peers opening early and widening throughout education. These gaps are not acceptable. The department is the lead department for the government’s Opportunity Mission, an ambitious, long-term and cross- governmental mission to break the link between a young person’s background and future success. This mission underpins the department’s work, including to help every child to achieve and thrive at school, and has a specific focus on improving outcomes for disadvantaged children. Impact will be measured through attainment at the end of secondary school. The department publishes headline attainment measures at national and regional level and by pupil characteristics including disadvantage status for: • Average Attainment 8 score; • Progress 8; • Percentage of pupils attaining grades 5 or above in English and maths; • Percentage of pupils entering the full EBacc combination of qualifications; • EBacc Average Point Score; • Key stage 4 disadvantage gap index. The department is focused on narrowing the disadvantage gap as quickly as possible. Progress is already closely monitored by the department and others through published data including the attainment measures outlined above, and key stage 1 and 2 attainment measures at national and regional level with a range of characteristic breakdowns. The department continually uses data to review progress across cohorts. This includes pupil-level data including disadvantage status for internal use. Monitoring assesses progress and determines how best to support all pupils, particularly disadvantaged pupils. In monitoring progress against the Opportunity Mission, the department will routinely bring data together to understand and monitor the impacts of interventions and tailor its approach.