White working-class pupils need help from all of society, inquiry warns

The Independent Inquiry into White Working Class Educational Outcomes is entering a new stage, and its co-chair has a blunt message: this is bigger than schools. Baroness Morris, a former education secretary, said the next phase will work out what needs to be done, and that it calls for action from across society rather than from teachers alone.

The inquiry was commissioned by the multi-academy trust Star Academies and is supported by the Department for Education. It spent a year talking to thousands of young people and their parents, plus hundreds of teachers, and dug through education data on the 1.25 million young people in England who are white British and receive free school meals.

Its first report, out this summer, concluded that once-in-a-generation reforms were needed to fix a system it said was not serving white working-class children. The inquiry also admitted the real scale of the disadvantage is likely to be substantially larger, because its data missed low-income families who weren't on free school meals. Since then, all families on Universal Credit have become eligible for them.

Phase two will target two age groups: early years children, to give them a stronger start at primary school, and teenagers aged 14 to 19, to build clearer routes through education and into work. A research programme will track the paths those teenagers take and look at how schools can team up with their communities to open doors to further study and jobs. It will also examine how the move from primary to secondary school can lay stronger foundations.

Education Secretary Lucy Powell said she was backing the inquiry to get to the heart of the barriers holding children back, from their first steps into school through to the choices they face as teenagers heading into further study, training or work. Powell noted that too many white working-class children are falling behind at every stage of their education.

The push lands alongside government plans to open new technical routes from age 14 in England, announced over the summer, aimed at cutting the number of young people not in education, employment or training, known as Neet. Nearly a million are currently in that category. Former minister Alan Milburn's interim report found children who aren't school-ready at four or five are almost three times as likely to be Neet by 16 or 17, and his final recommendations are expected within weeks.