Will the Government's March 2022 White Paper on Schools Deliver Results? | News

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In March this year, the government released a white paper outlining plans to make sure every child can reach their full potential during their school years by confirming that:

“Any child who falls behind in maths or English will get the support they need to get back on track.”

Schools will identify pupils who need extra help, provide targeted support via a range of proven methods such as small group tuition, and keep parents informed about their child’s progress.

The Parent Pledge will support the government’s “Levelling Up” mission for education (previously outlined in a previous white paper), for 90% of primary school children to achieve the expected standard in key stage two reading, writing and maths by 2030.

A second ambition for secondary schools aims to see the national average GCSE grade in both English language and maths increase from 4.5 in 2019 to 5 by 2030.

The white paper sets out a series of new measures to support the delivery of these ambitions, including:

Schools will offer a minimum school week of 32.5 hours by September 2023.
Ofsted will inspect every school by 2025, including the backlog of ‘outstanding’ schools that haven’t been inspected for many years.
By 2030 all children will benefit from being taught in a school in, or in the process of joining, a strong multi-academy trust, which will help transform underperforming schools and deliver the best possible outcomes for children.
At least £100m to put the Education Endowment Foundation on a long-term footing so they can continue to evaluate and spread best practice in education across the country.

If achieved, the wider benefits of pupils in 2030 meeting the key stage two and GCSE ambitions are estimated to be worth at least £30 billion each for the economy.

Only time will tell if this becomes the case, as the education sector has historically been under-resourced despite having the second-largest proportion of public service spending in the UK behind health. That spend represents about £99 billion between 2020–21 at today’s prices or about 4.5% of national income.

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