The education system is “not set up to serve white working-class children and families”, an independent inquiry has concluded.
The Independent Inquiry into White Working-Class Educational Outcomes also determined that once-in-a-generation reforms were needed to tackle why such children are the lowest-performing large demographic in England’s school system.
It was commissioned last summer by the multi-academy trust Star Academies, and is supported by the Department for Education.
Inquiry co-chairs Baroness Estelle Morris and Sir Hamid Patel said the issues identified in the report “cannot be explained away by low aspiration or lack of effort”, and cannot be “solved by schools alone”.
Thousands of young people and their parents as well as hundreds of teachers were interviewed for the inquiry.
It also analysed education data about white working-class pupils, looking at the 1.25 million young people in England who are white British and receiving free school meals.
The report determined that, as of 2025, just 36 per cent of white British pupils on free school meals achieve a Grade 4 or above in English and Maths GCSE, compared with 72 per cent of non-free school meal pupils. It dubs the disparity “the white working-class disadvantage gap”.
Among its findings, the inquiry determined white working-class communities and the education system had different viewpoints as to how each defines success and the purpose of education.
It said that while many families place greater importance on the social experience of school and call for more importance to be placed on vocational options for students, such as apprenticeships, the education system often emphasised academic progression to higher education.
In its 24 recommendations, the inquiry calls for more early-years support, improved mental health support and restrictions on smartphone use in schools.
It also says improvements are needed in how the system defines and prioritises white working-class educational outcomes, urges an extension of 30 hours’ free childcare to all disadvantaged families not currently eligible, and also calls for a massive expansion in apprenticeship opportunities in white working-class communities.
Baroness Morris and Sir Hamid said addressing these issues “will require sustained national effort over many years”.
They said: “The challenge set out in this report is significant. But so too is the opportunity.
“Every child in this country deserves to feel that education is for them, that their future matters, and that success is achievable regardless of where they come from.”
A headteacher said there is a disconnect in what the education system can offer all children from working class backgrounds and it is “too focused on outcomes that are academic based”.
Put to her that there are lots of parents who think school is not giving them what their children need, Amy Sparkes, headteacher at Ward Jackson Church of England Primary School in Hartlepool, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I’m really pleased that the report remarks that this is not a lack of aspiration from families and pupils, because it isn’t. There is absolutely a disconnect in what the education system, not individual schools, but the education system can offer all children from working class backgrounds.
“It is absolutely too focused on outcomes that are academic based, and we’re just not making enough headway in going back to what school was originally designed to be, which is to be a really integral part of the rich tapestry of a child’s life, not their nine to five, not the place they come just to learn.”
Put to her that some people might say passing exams is what is crucial, as white working-class children, on average, are half as likely to pass their maths and English GCSE, regarded as the absolute basic requirements to go into work, as their peers in other groups, she said: “And when did that become the absolute basic to get into the workplace?
“I think that we’ve really, as a society, moved too far in that direction, and by the time that those children have got to GCSE age, they’ve become disengaged with a system that’s not welcoming, it’s not meeting them where they are, it’s expecting them to change to the system, which is just not really what education should be.”
