Private schools still have a vice-like grip on Britain’s elite. We need many more pathways to the top of our society to level the playing field and stop wasting talent. New @suttontrust research. 👇

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Keeping children cool enough to learn and do exams in the summer is clearly a priority. @DeSmog estimates that pupils in England and Wales lost more than 15 million teaching hours during June’s heatwave, through school closures and increased absence. @NEUnion calling for a retro-fitting programme to fix it. We do need to do something. And unfortunately summers are only likely to get hotter! @DanielKebedeNEU @suttontrust

Family wealth buys time at university. Nearly one in three Russell Group students avoided maintenance loans with family support, while poorer students can take the maximum loan and still need paid work to get by. @suttontrust research found that essential costs exceeded the maximum loan for 57% of students living away from home outside London - meaning that they have to work to make ends meet. This has a knock on effect on their academic work. In separate Sutton Trust polling, 49% of undergraduates said they had missed timetabled teaching to do paid work. Poorer students were also twice as likely to have missed a deadline or requested an extension because of paid work: 16% compared with 8%. Fair access doesn't stop at admission. At a minimum we need maintenance loans to increase so students can live on them - and ideally some form of grant brought back for the least well off students. @thetimes.

Apprenticeships are presented as one of the main answers to the NEET crisis. But the system currently reaches very few young people already outside education or work. The number of under-19s starting an apprenticeship has almost halved over the past decade. Previous @suttontrust research found that just 2% of starting apprentices were previously NEET. Alan Milburn’s reported proposal for a national pre-apprenticeship route could help. Delivered through FE colleges, it would combine English and maths, technical learning and proper experience with an employer, giving young people who are not yet ready for a full apprenticeship a route into one. Potentially a good idea. Other countries - Austria, Germany, Ireland for example - do already have pre-apprenticeship programmes.

Government and business need a bigger shared ambition than getting through the next Budget. Unlocking Britain's hidden talent could be that ambition. It would give firms the people they need to grow, and give more young people a fair chance to get on. As I argue in @Independent this week, Britain's growth and opportunity problems are two sides of the same failure. We are not doing enough to find, develop and use the talent we have. I spent two decades helping major businesses grow and become more competitive. Now, leading the Sutton Trust, I see young people with enormous ability and ambition held back by a lack of educational opportunity, the right connections or that crucial first job. Both experiences have convinced me that widening opportunity should sit at the heart of Britain's growth strategy. There is a "grand bargain" to be made here. Government gives business greater confidence to invest: stable policy, faster planning, reliable infrastructure and action on the practical barriers to growth. In return, business commits to more investment, better jobs, more training and wider routes into careers and progression. Where firms receive substantial public support, those commitments should be measurable and enforceable. This could help rebuild business confidence. Clear commitments from government would give firms a stronger basis for growth, and a shared ambition to unlock talent would give business leaders and government something positive to get behind – with both sides holding a direct stake in making it succeed. The best employers already understand that finding potential others miss is a competitive advantage. The opportunity is to make that approach far more widespread. I'd like to see government and business leaders come together to work through the bargain: what each needs, what each can deliver, and how we turn that into stronger growth and wider opportunity. @suttontrust

Just arrived in Birmingham for some education conversation at CPC. :-) @suttontrust

Brilliant second panel on apprenticeships with @Jacqui_Smith1 @BrianHolliday01 @billyhubt and alumni Millie Court. Covered a lot of ground in an hour! 👍 @suttontrust

Another great event coming up tomorrow. 9am - so don’t drink too much tonight 😃

Labour conference day 2… @suttontrust

Standing room only at first @suttontrust event of labour conference - with @Georgia_Gould @lewis_goodall @helenadollimore @CullinaneCarl and Lindsey MacMillan.

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Adult English and maths provision has fallen dramatically in the last 7 years. Between 2016–17 and 2023–24 annual spending on adult English qualifications fell from £135m to £81m over the following five years. Maths spending fell from £155m to £97m. And annual achievements fell by 52% in English and 53% in maths. (Dropping further than spending because of inflation). This is the period in which the Adult Skills fund was devolved to Mayoral authorities where they exist - although it's not saying that devolution was the issue, and in fact spending fell slightly less in devolved areas. The reasons for such a significant drop are not explained in the report - and it'd be good to hear any insights from others. @FEWeek reporting based on @LearnWorkUK analysis. @suttontrust

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PISA shows Englands schools, (a) doing well, and (b) staying broadly flat (with science up a bit) while other countries have declined and hence we are going up the international ranking. Good analysis from JBM in the @FT

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