Friday Five: SEND council bankruptcies, arts inequalities, persistent disadvantage funding, youth club closures and ITT mentor training

1. End of council budget SEND exemption ‘dominating’ thinking in the sector 

Fears surrounding potential council bankruptcies are preventing much-needed SEND reform, warns newly-appointed government SEND adviser, Dame Christine Lenehan. 

A ‘statutory override’ that has allowed councils to write off debts related to their SEND provision is set to expire in March 2026, at which point the National Audit Office estimates that four in ten councils will be at risk of bankruptcy. Introduced by the previous government, there has been no update in the Budget as to whether Labour will retain the mechanism.

Addressing the County Councils Network in a speech on Tuesday, Lenehan argued that this uncertainty ‘stops us being creative, and stops us thinking about what we need to do’.

For more details read here

2. New report reveals glaring inequalities in access to the arts

A report published by the Sutton Trust this week lays bare the extent of inequality in access to arts education and the creative industries. A raft of new findings paint a stark picture of the issue, for example: fewer than 5% of Oxbridge students in creative degrees are from working-class backgrounds; and amongst under-35s working in the creative industries, there are four times as many people from middle-class compared to working-class origins.

Nick Harrison, CEO of the Sutton Trust, said:

“It’s a tragedy that young people from working class backgrounds are the least likely to study creative arts degrees, or break into the creative professions… It’s essential that action is taken to ensure access to high quality creative education in schools, and to tackle financial barriers to accessing creative courses and workplace opportunities.”

The full report is here

3. New recommendations for tackling persistent disadvantage in schools

A new approach to funding has been put forward by Education Policy Institute (EPI) to support persistently disadvantaged pupils – those on free school meals for more than 80% of their time in school. While attainment data demonstrates their acute need, current funding (e.g. Pupil Premium) does not differentiate between persistent and short-term disadvantage.

To address this oversight, EPI recommends investing £640 million per year to reverse real terms cuts to the Pupil Premium, as well as targeting persistently disadvantaged pupils through an ‘enhanced’ Pupil Premium. The enhanced premium would be worth a further £308 per primary persistently disadvantaged pupil and £255 at secondary, with funds to be raised from savings made by falling pupil numbers.

For more details read here

4. Youth club closures affected exam results and crime rates – IFS report

New research techniques used by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) have revealed the impact of austerity-led youth club closures on GCSE results and youth offending. 

Previous studies on youth club closures have struggled to demonstrate causality due to limited attendance data and the non-random selection of those who do attend. But by combining geographic variation in closures with new empirical techniques, IFS have shown that: 

• London youths who lost access to a nearby youth club performed 4% worse in their GCSEs, with those on free school meals performing 12% worse
• Young people who lost access to a youth club were 14% more likely to engage in criminal activity in the six years following closure

30% of youth clubs in London closed between 2010 and 2019.

Read more here

5. ITT mentor training requirement scrapped to boost teacher recruitment

A requirement that mentors of trainee teachers undertake 20 hours of training has been scrapped just two months after its introduction, due to its impact on schools’ workloads and teacher recruitment. The policy had been branded ‘excessive’ by school leaders, with the ASCL school leaders’ union urging the government to adopt a ‘more deliverable expectation’.

To improve chances of meeting its target of 6,500 new teachers, the government has cancelled the requirement with ‘immediate effect’, but requests that providers of initial teacher training ‘ensure they can effectively support a trainee teacher to obtain the knowledge and skills they need’. 

Read more on this story here

That’s all for this week! If you found this blog useful, please be sure to share/tweet it and follow @theCfEY, @conorcarleton, and @Barristotle for future editions.