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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A lot has happened in the five weeks since our last email. I am sure I was not alone in waiting with bated breath to see what the results of the American elections would be, and how they would affect the things we all care about. For those of you who missed it, there was a bit of a shock – yes, Massachusetts voted to get rid of high school exit exams. Chalkbeat and Hechinger Report both have good stories summarising major ballots on education and young people issues.

With education news being somewhat trumped this past month, you may have missed the news from Impetus HQ. We announced new partnerships with two MATs as part of our work on reducing exclusions. We'll be supporting them in developing high quality internal alternative provision, hopefully with lessons for the sector in due course.

We also have a new chair of trustees, Bill Benjamin. With this email landing in inboxes on Thanksgiving, there's no better time to thank our outgoing chair Hanneke Smits for all she's done for us over the years. Happy Thanksgiving, if you are celebrating.

Enjoy reading,

Ben

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In this issue

• Our thoughts on the last month's news and announcements including oracy, an exclusions campaign launch, and employment data lab findings
• Some things we enjoyed reading on reading, skills gaps, and social and emotional learning
• Some things to look forward to over the next month including Ofqual stats, ERSA conference, and NPC's reception
• If you get to the end, Ben recommends a betting strategy

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 – access to higher education, educational attainment, school engagement and sustainable employment.

Access to higher education

• University remains one of the best pathways for young people to secure good jobs and have good lives. So it's disappointing that the latest government figures found a record gap in university access between young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and their wealthier peers. Part of the reason is probably connected to an SMF finding of a gap in ‘assumed knowledge' - a whopping 48% of young people unaware that graduates typically earn more than non-graduates. It's clear that more needs to be done to support young people into higher education, whether through increased maintenance loans, additional grants, or equipping them with better knowledge of the higher education landscape. Note that "cut tuition fees" is not on that list. With the government getting some stick for an inflationary rise, a friendly reminder that this is much less of a factor for young people than having the money to pay the rent. (Ayesha Baloch, Senior Policy Advisor).

Educational attainment

• We recently had an op-ed on oracy published in SchoolsWeek. Drawing on our experience of supporting the roll-out of country-wide interventions such as the National Schools Breakfast Programme and National Tutoring Programme, we explored how the Government might implement oracy effectively at scale. Responses to the op-ed included a thoughtful substack piece by Dominic Salles, who describes himself as an English expert, school improvement consultant and someone interested in measurable impact. The piece uses evidence to challenge us in a compelling yet empathetic way – something we love at Impetus. While we may not agree, being aware of Dominic's arguments makes our work all the more robust and we're happy to see colleagues from the sector meaningfully engaging with our work. (Ayesha Baloch, Senior Policy Advisor)
• Sam Freedman has a report out for the Sutton Trust reviewing the policy changes in education in recent decades, which seem to have improved overall outcomes a bit without closing the gap between rich and poor. Sam has helpfully blogged about the work. It's not a huge surprise, given some of the self-inflicted wounds – the National Tutoring Programme evaluation finds approximately 50% of school senior leaders would likely offer tutoring if ringfenced funding were available but not if it isn't. Given the evidence base for tutoring, there's something of an open goal here if anyone is in the market for proven, gap-closing education policies. And if cold hard analysis isn't what you want in this weather, Andrew Otty's deeply personal story about why English and maths matters for young people will warm your soul. (Ben Gadsby, Head of Policy and Research)

School Engagement

• Last week our Who Is Losing Learning coalition partners Mission 44 launched their Nothing Happens in Isolation campaign and accompanying research report of the same name produced by Public First. The findings include the fact that children find bad behaviour in schools as challenging as teachers and that 97% of teachers who knew an excluded child well, saw signs of a potential exclusion ahead of time. Indeed, more than 60% noticed months earlier, and 39% saying they could have been identified at least a year before. In my mind, this makes the campaign's call for strong preventative action on exclusions and our approach of identifying issues early and providing young people with the right support to stop exclusions happening in the first place, all the more urgent. All this as government data shows another big rise in suspensions last Autumn term (up 40%) and Teacher Tapp finds that teachers agree with us and don't want exclusions simply abolished. (Carlie Goldsmith, Senior Policy Advisor)

Sustainable employment

• As a member of the advisory board for DWP's employment data lab it's my happy duty to tell you that the latest impact report shows Street League increased employment by around 15% so congratulations to all involved. It's not quite as good as our friends at Resurgo achieved – but these are the first two of hopefully many proven employment programmes which need to grow and support more young people. Only slightly related, Dan Corry's last speech as CEO at NPC is a corker. His view that "it is borderline immoral not to at least think hard about whether you could do more with your resources than you do now" is one that merits a moment of reflection. As a reminder, the last data lab report showed Merseyside Youth Association having no impact. Probably borderline immoral not to act on all this information, if you can. (Ben Gadsby, Head of Policy and Research)
• YFF Youth Employment Outlook recommends a coordinated programme of solutions to support young people, including expanding the support provided by Youth Hubs, creating a joint ministerial brief between the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education, trialling more intensive support for marginalised groups, reforming the Apprenticeship Levy, and offering better assistance to those facing additional barriers. Some of this is likely to appear in the White Paper published after we draft this email – more next month! (Ayesha Baloch, Senior Policy Advisor)

Top reads

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

• The RSA have now published final reports from their Prevent School Exclusions work in three Local Authorities. The reports are really interesting and set out what have found to be the features of collaborative working that has reducing exclusions as a specific aim. The authors say it's too early to know if efforts have translated into reduced exclusions, but I would still like to have seen the data included. In the meantime, it's useful reading if you are embarking on developing greater collaborative working and want an example of how it's been done, plus insight into the importance of leadership buy-in, meaningful co-design and collaborative working involving actors across the system. (Carlie Goldsmith, Senior Policy Advisor)
• Reading is the foundational skill for accessing the curriculum, and as a lover of blogs and articles (you'd never have guessed, would you?) I was sad to see National Literacy Trust research which showed two thirds of children don't enjoy reading – I am sure all our jobs would be easier if that wasn't the case. Further interesting reading about reading comes from PIRLS, the big international reading studs. I love good intersectional data – they find gaps between rich and poor pupils were widest amongst Mixed and White pupils, and narrowest amongst Black pupils. This blog from education data lab on measuring reading fluency is much shorter and well worth your time. (Ben Gadsby, Head of Policy and Research)
• Prizes will be given for anyone who remembers that one of the things I did just after joining Impetus was attend the Global launch of the OECD 2023 Survey on Social and Emotional Skills. It was a cracking event, and this month I've been reading two further OECD SEL reports. The first, Volume 2 of the survey findings but this time focused on the differences in how social and emotional skills are promoted in school, at home, and by society across countries. The call to build schools as hubs in their community and ensuring the experiences of those from disadvantaged backgrounds are paid particular attention seemed pertinent. The second, a policy paper that covers the teachability of SEL skills (spoiler alert – you can teach them) plus developments in the standardised assessment of SEL skills will be useful for anyone who wants a summary of the available evidence base. (Carlie Goldsmith, Senior Policy Advisor)
• With the Skills England Bill making its way through the House of Lords, the ONS has launched a nifty tool exploring skills gaps. The tool lets you explore which jobs are advertised the most in a specific UK local authority area, and how many local residents have the relevant skills to fill them. Coincidentally, this comes at a time when the ONS itself is under fire for unreliable employment data, potentially due to its own skills gap. It's certainly thrown up interesting questions about how we support the young people we care about. Is it about equipping young people with the skills to be able to access the labour market with absolute freedom, no matter what they want to do? Or is it about supporting young people into stable, good jobs? If you have any thoughts, feel free to drop me a line. (Ayesha Baloch, Senior Policy Advisor)
• Impetus' mission is focussed on young people from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, and we generally measure that based on low income. But I always keep a keen eye on other forms of acute socioeconomic disadvantage. The Lords' Public Services Committee report on transition to work for young disabled people is a weighty tome with a familiar conclusion – with the right support, all young people can succeed. Similarly, the carer's trust continues to bang the drum for young carers, with official data in the works but as yet unpublished their finding that 46% of young carers at secondary school in England were persistently absent is the best data we have on a hard to reach group facing big challenges. (Ben Gadsby, Head of Policy and Research)
• This month in research, a focus on teachers… performance related pay in Wisconsin incentivised graduates from selective universities to get into teaching, ultimately boosting pupils test scores four years later – consistent with the EEF toolkit evidence of one month additional progress… new research finds more extraverted and open teachers have lower expectations of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, conscientious and agreeable teachers the opposite… Before rushing to change your staff based on the above, research in Colombia found that replacing experienced teachers with newer teachers with better test scores ultimately led to lower grades for pupils. (Ben Gadsby, Head of Policy and Research)

Look ahead

Tuesday 3 December is YEUK's Good Youth Work Symposium and NPC's end of year reception

Wednesday 4 December is ERSA's annual conference

Thursday 5 December is the annual Tutor Trust reception (and launch of their impact report)

Thursday 12 December we get Ofqual's statistics on malpractice and moderation in this summer's exams

Thursday 19 December is the next edition of Impetus Insights – a week early, because we sort of assume you might be too busy to read it if we send it on Boxing Day

And finally...

No, not my unsuccessful forays into online poker – but instead a question of how to spend philanthropic money for impact. This piece in Stanford Social Innovation Review got my juices flowing. Any article that is pretty explicit in advising "don't blow precious philanthropy dollars on unnecessary - and sometimes counterproductive - service delivery" is going to get my attention. The basic argument that governments deliver at the scale that matters, and therefore there comes a point for organisations to shift to thinking about how to transition their work to a do-er at scale is one that basically explains why I chose to work in policy. The section on what "big enough" to make this shift looks like is one of many highlights. (Ben Gadsby, Head of Policy and Research)