Data from the Education Policy Institute (EPI) shows pupils eligible for free school meals are 4.3 months behind classmates when they enter reception and that this attainment gap grows to 19.3 months by the end of secondary school.
In its 2019 Attainment Gap report, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) highlights that a majority of 19-year-olds who have been eligible for free school meals leave education without a good standard of recognised qualifications in English and maths – acting as a drag on their efforts to progress in work and adult life.
Education attainment is a key factor in social mobility, according to the Long Shadow of Deprivation, a report published last year by the Social Mobility Commission (SMC). It analysed the income of boys born in England in the late 1980s finding that education gaps between sons from poor and wealthy families explain, on average, around 80 per cent of the gap in adult earnings between them. In addition, the gap in earnings between sons from the richest and poorest families was widest in areas with low social mobility.
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