Welcome to Impetus Insights... a place where we discuss ideas, articles and interesting reading about education and employment policy - and what we think it means for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. We'll be sharing this every month alongside news and updates about our own policy work. We'd love to hear what you think of this edition, and what you'd like to see in future newsletters.

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It's the end of the financial year, so the obvious theme for this month's edition is money. The recent CSJ report Supercharging Philanthropy was a sobering read. Apparently last year giving from FTSE100 companies fell, "leaving an estimated £164 million in lost charitable contributions". Meanwhile the "UK's wealthiest collectively dropped their donations by £200 million last year". Tough times.

In that context, it was good to see the outcomes of the Office for Students grant round for innovative collaborations. This was something the regulator had announced at an event we hosted last year, and our longstanding charity partner IntoUniversity was one of 11 successful applicants. We're very much hoping these projects help promote greater collaboration between universities and charities in supporting young people to access higher education.

Of course, Impetus is a funder – and we're funding right now. If you're a not for profit that supports young people who are NEET to get skills and get jobs; or you support schools or young people to achieve attainment in GCSE English and maths (or at key stage 2) then check out the website.

Enjoy reading,

Ben

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In this issue

• Our thoughts on the last month's news and announcements including the Who is Losing Learning solutions report, EMA evaluation, and our new and upcoming Youth Jobs Gap research
• Some things we enjoyed reading from Peter Hyman, research on absence and evaluation task force training slides
• Some things to look forward to over the next month including our tutoring report, a book launch on metrics, and a conference looking at the next decade in education
• If you get to the end, I'm talking about charging people to apply for jobs

News and views

Our focus here, as at Impetus, is on the outcomes that we know work to improve the life chances of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds – school engagement, educational attainment, and sustained employment.

• The Public Accounts Committee has looked at improving educational outcomes for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. I was pleased they pointed out that pupil premium funding has fallen slightly in real terms in the last five years or so – a consequence of it being politically more important to focus on headline/core funding. Their points about the lack of insight and oversight into how the money is spent – and that too often it is simply filling other budget holes - are also salient. At the risk of shouting into the void: evaluate things! Back what works! Please. (Ben Gadsby, Head of Policy and Research)

• Well, my friends, the day finally arrived: the Who is Losing Learning? Coalition's report Who is Losing Learning? Finding solutions to the school engagement crisis landed with a bang. Led by coalition partners The Difference and IPPR with support from ourselves and Mission 44 it wasn't even 7am and I was brushing my teeth when I heard the BBC Radio 4 Today programme talking about the crisis of lost learning and the evidence-backed solutions we recommend for schools, local authorities and government in the report. And we were still going strong at 10pm when the last of the attendees at our evening launch event – a space filled with energy and hope – left the room. My biggest highlight, as always, was hearing from young people. Taejon and Gary told their stories to Sky and Aaliyah wowed the crowd with her contribution on the impact of school exclusion at the launch. Read and share the report and if you want to help make change happen, and register to attend one of the regional roadshows run with Centre for Young Lives and coalition partners Mission 44. (Carlie Goldsmith, Senior Policy Advisor)
  
• According to the annual statistics release, almost one in seven 16-24 year olds are now not in employment, education or training (NEET). As an organisation that strives to transform the lives of these young people, we are particularly worried about this increase. We also know from our 2017 Youth Jobs Gap research that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are twice as likely to be NEET compared with their better-off peers. The second part of the project, launching in May, is digging into how characteristics like Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), ethnicity and others affect young people's labour market outcomes. We're hoping our new evidence can support the development of policies to reduce NEET rates and finally shift the dial on this persistent and worsening issue. Watch this space. (Ayesha Baloch, Senior Policy Advisor)
  
• We've had a hunch for a while that school absence was one of the main drivers of poor attainment for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and this was confirmed by EPI research published this month, which concluded that the growth in the disadvantage gap since 2019 can be explained by higher levels of absence for disadvantaged pupils. With our research showing that fining parents can make matters worse, everyone is on the hunt for a golden attendance bullet. But what about young people? Where are they in all of this? Luckily, we should be able to tell you soon, with our report on young people's views on school attendance coming your way in the summer. (Carlie Goldsmith, Senior Policy Advisor)
  
• It's been a big month for education, with the release of the interim report of the Curriculum and Assessment Review (CAR). We were pleased to see the emphasis on English and maths qualifications which are crucial for later life outcomes, particularly as we know young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to achieve these. I was interested to see the omission of oracy, which has so-far featured heavily in Labour's education policy, from their manifesto to the terms of reference for the CAR. As Peter Hyman recently wrote in a piece for the Financial Times, the CAR must reinforce the purpose of school: "to develop the whole child – head, heart and hand". Oracy will be key to this, and we're looking forward to seeing the government deliver on their commitment. (Ayesha Baloch, Senior Policy Advisor)
  
• I am almost exactly the right age for Educational Maintenance Allowance to be a big deal. Several of my friends at sixth form in the late 2000s received it; almost all my student peers hated its abolition in 2010; and it has come up at least once a year for the entire 10+ years I've worked in education policy. It's a total red herring, as new IFS analysis has shown, generating just 40p of benefit for every £1 spent. By contrast tutoring is £6.58 per £1 spent – so it's about 16 times more effective. At the risk of shouting into the void: evaluate things! Back what works! Please. (Ben Gadsby, Head of Policy and Research)

Top reads

Here's our roundup of some of the most useful and thought-provoking reads across a range of interesting areas...

• I don't need much excuse to start talking about government evaluation. This evaluation of DWP's sector-based work academy programme is interesting – it increases employment by around a third, which is pretty impressive; but it varies significantly by sector, which we often don't factor in. Also, the Cabinet Office Evaluation Taskforce has produced some training slides for departments on evaluating. I actually think it's a great primer for anyone who wants to know more about evaluating. Hook it to my veins! (Ben Gadsby, Head of Policy and Research)
• Shocking facts of the month. 172,000 young people were severely absent, missing at least half of all lessons in academic year 2024/25 – the highest number since records began. DfE analysis found that missing just 10 days of year 11 reduced the likelihood of achieving grade 5 in English and Maths by around 50%. Given the strong evidence of the relationship between GCSEs and positive life outcomes this is essential insight for schools and organisations trying to make a difference to attendance and attainment. (Carlie Goldsmith, Senior Policy Advisor)
• Shoutout to Carlie for directing me to this piece from UCL's Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities (CEPEO). They find while people from working class backgrounds and ethnic minority groups are over-represented in applicant pools, they are less likely to receive job offers, even when accounting for differences in attainment and other characteristics. For ethnic minority groups who are also from working class backgrounds, there's evidence of "a double disadvantage". I find this really interesting when coupling it with Attainment 8 scores. We know these are crucial for labour market outcomes, yet young people from Black and Asian backgrounds who are eligible for free school meals score over 10 points higher than their FSM-eligible peers from White backgrounds. As Gen Z would say, the math isn't math-ing. Organisations such as Youth Futures Foundation are doing good work to build the evidence around this, but it's clear there's still much more to learn. (Ayesha Baloch, Senior Policy Advisor)
• I'd recommend having a look at this new paper from academics at UCL that finds bright children from poor families, the group we would think have the best chance of breaking through what they call the glass (and I'd call class) ceiling, experience a particularly sharp relative decline in their attitudes towards school, behaviour, mental health and academic achievement between age 11 and 14, compared to their high income peers. The authors conclude this is a barrier to social mobility. My takeaway is that building a more inclusive system for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds is urgent. (Carlie Goldsmith, Senior Policy Advisor)
• I finally caught up on Joseph Rowntree Foundation's Poverty 2025 report. Lots of familiar points – poverty is broadly flat and children experience the highest poverty rates, around 30%. But lots of things that are worth highlighting, including that deep poverty has been worsening and now makes up the largest subgroup of poverty, and families with 3+ children are most likely to be in poverty. Obviously tackling poverty isn't schools' job, but I do wish we had some more granular measures of poverty in education to enable us to target resources better. (Ben Gadsby, Head of Policy and Research)
• First flagged by the Resolution Foundation, this research made me chuckle. After a lifetime of telling kids like me they spend too long in front of screens, this paper suggests the opposite, finding that attainment for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds increased following a shift to digital TV 15 years or so ago. It seems likely that an increase in TV viewing time likely led to a decrease in other, riskier behaviours. It makes sense, but I am not sure I ever would have predicted it. (Ben Gadsby, Head of Policy and Research)

Look ahead

Tuesday 2 April is the launch of a report on the future of tutoring. If you want to come to the Parliamentary launch that morning, let me know!

Thursday 3 April has two interesting events. Pro Bono Economics are holding "More Than Grades: Why Children's Wellbeing Data Matters" in the morning, and the Resolution Foundation have an early evening book launch on "The metrics that really matter".

Wednesday 16 April is National Primary Offer Day – good luck to all those of you waiting to find out where your offspring are going. It's also the fifth birthday of the Youth Employment Group! Cake welcome. 🍰

Friday 18/Saturday 19 April is the NASUWT conference.

Friday 25 April is The Next Decade conference, asking the question "what do we want education to look like over…" some time period, I forget which.

And finally...

The blog "no dumb idea" is great. It explores simple ideas to see if they have any merit when fully thought through. Last month they explored whether charging people $1 to apply for a job is a good idea. They acknowledge it would be about as popular as gout, but as we head towards very large numbers of AI driven applications probably being scored by AI, there's some merit in it. They suggest hiring firms should donate the application fees to charity, for PR reasons and also to avoid weird incentives. Can I go a step further – donate the money to charities working to support young people to get into work? If any readers want to partner on a trial of this, message me…