COVID-19 revealed the depth of economic, social and educational inequality in England. State schools had to deal with rising levels of child poverty and inadequate provision of laptops. In response, the government promised state school catch-up funding worth only £50 per pupil – which is pretty palty compared with the £12,866 per pupil average advantage enjoyed by private schools.
In 2017-18, state schools in England had a median income of only £5,782 per pupil, while the figure for private schools was nearly four times that – £18,648 – my recent report for the Common Wealth think tank found.
It’s little wonder then that throughout the pandemic, private schools had an advantage over their state sector peers. They were able to provide more online teaching than state schools – a gap that actually widened between the first and the second lockdown – and emerged the winners of two summers of chaotic exams.
