SUTTON TRUST REPORT ON THE IMPACT OF SCHOOL CLOSURES ON SOCIAL MOBILITY

The Sutton Trust has published a report showing that school closures will significantly impact the social mobility of the “covid generation” unless “significant efforts are made to address the impact on learning.” Its key findings were as follows:

• The report found that the long-term impact of school closures on future earnings is more than three times higher for pupils from less-well off homes as those from advantaged backgrounds.
• On average, across the cohort of Year 11 students in 2019-20 in England, the projected loss in earnings over a 20 year period due to missed learning since March, is £3,830 for young men from low socio-economic backgrounds, and £1,150 for those from high socio-economic backgrounds.
• The chances of lower-income boys becoming socially mobile has fallen by 7.5%. For girls, it has fallen by 4.5%. This represents a “significant negative impact” on social mobility.
• For the 2019-20 Year 11 group alone, the overall economic cost of missed learning is likely to be at least £1.6 billion. Based on this estimate for this one year group the economic cost of all those in secondary school would be in excess of £11 billion.

To mitigate the impact of this, the Sutton Trust has called for “vast resources” to be targeted at disadvantaged pupils, including further investment to prevent a deepening of the digital divide to ameliorate problems with lack of access to digital devices for online learning. It has also called for the pupil premium to be protected in real terms and further funding support to be given for disadvantaged groups.