Tag Archives: disadvantage

Igniting identity | circumstance and happenstance

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Our self-identity forms over time, shaped by our experiences and interactions, particularly in our formative years. It is not a uniform development of self, but rather one that is punctuated disproportionately by high impact moments. These sit in our backstories, having ignited our identity and shaped who we have become.

These moments are often subtle, quiet experiences of awe and wonder: a sudden realisation, both unsettling and exciting, that the world and our role in it is not what we thought. In these moments of alchemy, brief serendipitous collisions create a hiatus between our old and new self-image.

“…in moments of alchemy, brief and serendipitous collisions, the beautiful texture of interwoven lives. There are many seeds of genius in the world, we must nurture as many as we can.” Helen Lewis

Circumstance and happenstance

The development of self is determined by our context, upbringing and by the influential adults and peers that we look to through childhood: an on-going influence of circumstance through our formative years.

But much, arguably, is happenstance, serendipitous moments that build our self-image. Brief events, often remarkably small, that disproportionately shape our lives. Rather awkwardly, they are often surprisingly quiet, private moments of self-realisation that are invisible to the provider.

“The smallest act in the most limited circumstances bears the seed of boundlessness, because one deed, and sometimes one word, suffices to change every constellation.” Hannah Arendt

Yet for some children the vagaries of life’s happenstances are less frequent, less influential or much less accessible. It also depends on a child’s circumstance and their pre-disposition to act on these moments. Whilst our childhood sets the conditions and the circumstances that influence our predispositions, the brief moments, the happenstances, disproportionately explain who we become.

Predispositions

Will, Should, Might, Could, Won’t, Can’t

Our context and circumstance, whether consciously or unconsciously, determine our predispositions and the strength of our self-agency. For any given aspect of life we align to one of the following dispositions:

•I Will  …. I fully expect to do this, unswerving, predestined, locked in, self-fulfilling.

•I Should … Highly likely, people like me do things like this (reinforced by peer status).

•I Might … Entirely possible and within my gift, requires a step forward, focus and resourced adults.

•I Could … It is possible, but could be difficult to achieve – requires ignition, support and must be followed by resource.

•I Won’t … People like me don’t do this, locked out, keys hard to find, and not sought, no capacity or resource, unable to see the future or be part in it.

•I Can’t … Not possible, nobody like me does things like this, psychologically and materially forbidden.

If you are under-resourced and have experienced much less privilege, then too often your agency is limited to the bottom few dispositions. This offers a form of immunity to moments of ignition and even if ignited a lack of resource to follow your triggered passion. In a world of privilege, however, you occupy the top few dispositions: emboldened to accessible experiences and open to life-changing moments. And yet, ‘ambition’ is equally distributed, but enhanced or stifled from birth and perhaps before birth.

“If you are lucky enough to be born in a world made in your image, you probably think of a failure as an obstacle on the path to eventual success. If you are a marginalised person in any way you internalise that failure more closely.” Elizabeth Day

Moments of wow… igniting identity

Regardless of who we are there are moments we witness that change our passions, our identity and motivation for what we wish to become…

“But the moment that changed everything came on 29 July 1992 … the Barcelona Olympics. Chris Boardman was about to go in the final of the men’s individual pursuit. I sat in front of the TV and watched him … Four and a bit minutes later, Chris had overtaken his German counterpart and become Britain’s first Olympic cycling gold medallist in 72 years. I was 12 and knew straightaway I wanted to emulate his feat. Another 12 years later I did just that.” Bradley Wiggins

…or influential adults who we are desperate to emulate…

“When I’m 13, my mum gives me a load of photos that she’s found. There he is, in his cycling kit, racing. It’s a definite “Wow!” moment, like he’s been brought to life in my hands. Those photos become my greatest treasure. The closest connection I could have with my father was by following in his footsteps” Bradley Wiggins

…or experiences that ignite our identity…

“My love for cinema began at a very early age, as early as I can remember… I was just a little kid in a darkened theatre, and I remember that beam of light just cut across the room and I remember looking up, and it seemed to just explode on the screen. … and suddenly, the world was so much larger than the one that I knew … it opened my eyes. It opened my imagination to the possibility that life could expand far beyond the boundaries that I then perceived in my own life.” Tom Cruise

“Making films is not what I do, it is who I am.” Tom Cruise

Owning the future

How far are children able to focus on the future? If you exist in an under-resourced world where you seek to survive the day, the week, your effective horizon is limited, perhaps irrelevant to you: there is no bandwidth to contemplate your future. This fundamentally forces you toward the weaker predispositions, I Won’t and Can’t, and breaks the connection between recognising that the efforts of now are an investment in next. The future will act on me.

Resourced children are able to make the investments now, fill their lockers and are typically compelled to do so, supported to strong dispositions, I Will and Should. I create my future.

To be or not to be

To be or not to be, that is the question that children wrestle with as they navigate the world. We know, though, that some children have much less capacity to be, forced into a not to be mindset. Growing in a world that tips the odds against you, denies a starting disposition, or ladder to, ‘Will, Should, Could’ and restricts the under-resourced to ‘Can’t and Won’t’. Only the application of equity can offer a ladder and break the cycle.

Lockers filled with belief

In every aspect of a child’s life, a child holds a locker of self-belief. Advantaged children have bursting lockers, filled by circumstance and opportunity, narrated by resourced adults, affirmed through experience. The lockers of under resourced children are sparse, short on belief, encouragement or affirming experiences. When they look to their lockers for self-confidence and self-belief they are encouraged, perhaps compelled, to step back, to not take risks and internalise the failure. We must be better at filling the lockers of under-resourced children.

“When you are born into wealth and privilege, you inherit a plan that outlines the paths ahead, indicating the shortcuts and byways available to reach your destination … If you enter the world without such a map, you are bereft of proper guidance. You lose your way more easily.” Elif Shafak

Chasing status

What you become depends largely on who you find yourself with. We measure status on those around us, typically the 5 peers that we spend time with that we look to and derive our own sense of status. Our belief in what is possible is shaped by our peers, and our schools are the crucible for these interactions.

Our verbal quota

“…we speak about 16,000 words a day, that is a lot of chances to tease, complain and criticise, but also to encourage, inspire and comfort. I know I can do a lot more good with my verbal quota.” Matt Woodcock

In every interaction, exchange and conversation our words are a powerful force for good (or ill). We never know for certain the weight of our words on a child, but we do know that children are adult-watchers, seeking to decode the world around them. Awkwardly or helpfully, in every interaction our words always carry weight and have influence, intended or otherwise. Often just 13 words deliver a self-belief that becomes unshakable and propels a dopamine-soaked desire to follow a passion:

“…I was introduced to a club coach, Stan Knight. Immediately he took hold of my wrist. “I’ve never felt a pulse like it,” he said. He looked me in the eye – “You’re going to be the best cyclist this country has ever produced.” … I liked the fact he had belief in me… Stan didn’t tell me I was special because of who my dad was. He told me I was special. Me.” Bradley Wiggins

Inspiring lives

“I began to realise how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. If you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it full speed, Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all else become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good.” Roald Dahl

As educators we chose to inspire lives – and yet we spend little time understanding how children exist in the world or how their lives unfold through their circumstance and happenstance. How do we ensure that curiosity, hope and ambition is a feature of all childhoods not just those that are privileged?

Perhaps we should maintain a greater sense of awe and wonder, of possibility and back it with the application of equity and protect the flickering flames of hope, so that more children can embrace an interest with both arms. If we are to ignite a child’s self-identity, so that they have agency into their adulthood, we must create greater opportunity and apply the equity that will give all children the choice to follow their dreams.

...inspire lives with greater opportunity and choice.

Dan Nicholls | December 2025

Toward the future | inspiring lives

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Our Mission

In the next phase we will strengthen our trust, deepen our connection and collaboration to add more value to each other and to all children. This is a venture in shared responsibility and joint endeavour to inspire lives with greater opportunity and choice. Succeeding in our mission:

Inspiring every child to flourish through an inclusive, all-through education that nurtures opportunity, equity, and agency for life.

A mission that ensures 11,000 children flourish and develop greater self-agency, becoming the masters of their fate. A worthy quest powered by 1,500 connected colleagues, empowered to do meaningful work.

For those that carry the most

We recognise that some children carry more than most, have had less opportunity and experiences in their early childhood and so need us more. They neither lack ambition or ability, but they have less capacity, fewer resources and face barriers that tip odds against them. In difficult times education has the power to transform lives, which is the business we are in. The performance and development of these children is the most important measure of our worth.

“We need equity in education, not equality. If someone can’t see straight because the world is falling in around them, we need to raise them up to clearer skies.” Poor, Katriona O’Sullivan

Anchored by our Values

Everything we do is held by our shared values:

Our stable core enables our innovative edge

We continue to build a strong trust with great schools that focuses on getting every day right and building a stable core: consistently delivering high quality provision with effective systems and shared approaches, enables our frontline obsession.

We stand on our stable core and what we choose to do the same, so that we can innovate on the edge, expertly developing approaches to improve provision and inspire lives. This is a collective, connected and developmental endeavour through collaboration.

Towards 2030 | why we exist

To build a strong trust with great schools. Offering high quality education over 570-weeks that closes gaps for those that most need us. So that the trust exists in a higher performance space and exploits our collaborative advantage that yields a trust dividend.

Our focus on partnerships and places builds better communities for children to grow up in and flourish. Colleagues create greater opportunity through deliberate local and regional collaboration,seeking to improve other trusts and the sector.

The trust is deeply connected within itself. There is a strong collective desire and shared responsibility to add value for all children in every setting. This collaboration enables a level of innovation and shared approaches that add more value. As part of a human organisation colleagues are well connected, making a greater difference to others in and beyond our trust.

The consequence of our work over five years is that the trust becomes self-improving, the systems, shared approaches, trust improvement model, collaboration, horizontal leadership and empowerment is creating more value over time and is self-sustaining.

Colleagues enjoy more opportunity and are proud to do meaningful work that is enabling all children to flourish through an inclusive, all-through education that nurtures opportunity, equity, and agency for life

Higher performance space | in search of the trust dividend

There is an unswerving, shared responsibility and desire to raise standards. To build a strong trust and great schools that exist in a higher performance space that particularly enables disadvantaged learners to thrive and attain well.

So, where next… this year

In the next phase, to summer 2026 we will prioritise these six areas:

Innovative Edge | Inspiring lives

This year we will invest in our inclusive all-through education (570-weeks) and apply greater equity to close gaps for children that need us most. A focus on place-based improvement will build strong community partnerships and support improvement beyond our trust.

Stable Core | frontline obsession

We will continue to invest in our stable core, by building a strong trust that enables great schools. Our colleague focused strategy will invest in all colleagues and create the conditions for our frontline obsession. Aiming to create a self-improving trust, investing in lateral leadership, connection, collaboration and strong systems.

570 Weeks | inspiring all-through education

To build an inspiring, inclusive, all-through education: as an entitlement for all children. Enacting excellent provision for every child throughout their 570 weeks of education. Prioritising:

  • Trust Curriculum | curating and enacting a shared curriculum across all year groups. (SDP)
  • Attendance, inclusion and transitions | to secure stronger attendance, strong inclusion and high-quality transitions, disadvantage first. (SDP)
  • Best Start in life | investing in the strongest possible start for all children through nursery and early years, enabled through a set of core commitments. (SDP)
  • Outstanding Personal Development | outstanding personal development curriculum builds character and offers greater opportunity for all children in every setting.

Closing gaps | seeking social justice

To apply equity and unswervingly commit to meeting the needs of children experiencing disadvantage and SEND, securing attainment and attendance that closes gaps and builds agency for each child. Securing greater social justice by prioritising:

  • The trust-wide development of teaching | systematic focus on the development of teaching to enact our shared curriculum. Our strongest lever for closing gaps. (SDP)
  • Disadvantage first | unswerving focus on the performance of disadvantaged pupils, through targets, data and quality assurance, as the indicator of the quality of our provision. (SDP)
  • Catch-up, Keep-up | systematic tracking all learners and applying equity, doing different and more, so that all children are caught up and kept up. (SDP)
  • All leaders, leaders of SEND | developing our SEND provision, focusing on ‘all leaders as leaders of SEND’ – securing a systematic strategy to meet SEND needs.

The importance of place | community partnerships

To build partnerships with educational and community partners to secure stronger communities and 570-week educations for all children. Using expertise in the trust to reach out and secure improvement in schools, trusts and the sector. Growing our reputation and influence by prioritising:

  • Strong recruitment built on growing reputation | securing stronger recruitment of pupils into our schools to inspire more lives and better serve our communities.
  • Trust Growth | securing appropriate and strategic growth of the trust to secure financial opportunities and grow our reputation and influence.
  • Collaboration with local trusts, local authorities and partners | seeking strong collaboration to secure improvement beyond the trust – seeking to influence all 570-weeks
  • Sector reputation and influence | playing an active role beyond the trust, including with the DfE and other partners, to influence policy, improve other trusts and the sector.

Colleague focused | developmental and collaborative

Investing in all colleagues to be connected, to collaborate, develop and grow to lead and contribute toward the mission and feel empowered to do meaningful work. Prioritising:

  • Recruitment and Retention | building a strategy to recruit well and to attract and retain strong colleagues. Considering our approach to flexible working.
  • Professional Development | creating on-going opportunities for professional development, held in a curriculum. Developing, inspiring and creating more opportunities for colleagues.
  • Induction | investing in and building strong induction to support all colleagues to have the best possible start to their career in our trust.
  • Well-being and mental health strategy | securing approaches across the trust to support all colleagues with their well-being and mental health.

Strong Trust, Great Schools | standardise, empower, sustain

Ensuring that the trust improvement model offers the foundation for colleagues to lead great schools. Complicated systems well embedded across the trust to drive effectiveness and efficiency. Prioritising:

  • Deliberate enactment of the Trust Improvement Model (SIM) | developing our standardised approaches, enabling empowered areas and sustaining the model to secure improvement.
  • Financial stability and clarity | Ensuring the trust maintains the present financial security, secures wider responsibility and enables greater investment in the trust.
  • Professional Services | developing professional services, to strengthen platform, offer capacity, expertise and secure the environment to empower all colleagues to deliver the mission.
  • IT Strategy | ensuring colleagues and pupils have the tools they need to thrive now and in the future. Developing our digital vision and cloud-first approach. Exploring the opportunities of AI.

Towards a self-improving trust | lateral trust leadership

Creating the expectation and conditions for horizontal improvement across the trust. Connectivity and collaboration that are more effective and efficient at driving the School Improvement. Prioritising:

  • Trust Leadership Curriculum | investing in and enacting a trust leadership curriculum and to extend the sense of leadership curriculum through networks and the layers of the trust.
  • Networks and Subject Communities | connecting colleagues with purpose, formally and informally, to enable the development of strategies that raise standards.
  • Lateral leadership, 20% time | creating the expectation and the structure for colleagues to work beyond setting to support lateral leadership and secure a self-improving trust.
  • Succession Planning | investing in succession planning and talent management to ensure the future leadership security for our trust.

First Steps… into Term 1

And our first steps in Term 1 will see us deepen our connection and collaboration and prioritise:

  1. Understanding performance and setting the ambition and targets for 2026.
  2. High quality Induction and line management, starting out strong.
  3. Strong start and focus on Attendance, disadvantage first.
  4. Best Start in Life, embedding our core commitments.
  5. Enacting our shared curriculum.
  6. Focus on the development of teaching through Steplab.
  7. Embedding the new Planergy software in Finance.

We choose to venture on this journey to 2030 not because it is easy, but because it is hard, and because our ambition will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills, because the challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win (adapted, John F. Kennedy)

So, breathe, commit … and go inspire lives with greater opportunity and choice.

Thank you, you make a difference

Dan Nicholls | August 2025

Be More Pirate | time for good trouble

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Amidst the turbulent waves of change we must re-imagine what education and our system can be; it is the opportunity of now, because next matters. It is at this point in our maturing sector that we should venture for greater coherence, collaboration and connection. By embarking on shared quests, we can better navigate toward a new North Star for all places and plunder our shared capability for all children. We need to be more pirate.

“Pirates trouble the edges of society and make enough shock waves to influence the middle ground. Trouble is their tool, although it’s more accurate to call it good trouble.” Sam Conniff Allende

Next needs to be more collective, more adjoined, more than the sum of the present parts, because too often, we are in parts. The view from the crow’s nest reveals inequity and that our pieces rarely fit well to serve our places and the children that need us most. It is the incongruousness of our pieces, the dominance of ‘I’ over ‘we’ and conditions that drive isolationism and competition that is constraining our collective potential. As system altruists, and sector architects we should rise and act on and not just in our system; seeking good trouble.

“…acting on the system gives us an opportunity to think differently. We should think of leadership as the ability to shape the system.” Leora Cruddas

Charting new waters | shared mutinies of good trouble

There are times in history when a group of like-minded individuals chart new waters and from the fringes find new ways to live and be; creating a movement based on new rules, a new code. Pirates challenged the world-order and flipped the accepted shared truths about how things could be, they created a movement so successful and agile that their approach and thinking might just influence and provoke us into our next-phase; toward better. This is our time to be a little more Pirate to strengthen and connect Trusts, to rebel, rewrite, reorganise, redistribute and retell the hell out of what could be.

“Whilst pirates get a bad press, there is significant evidence that these merry men (and women) actually transformed the world and challenged the oppressive status quo. The golden age for pirating 1710-1740 was progressive and counter-establishment – it provided the basis and conditions for significant change. Now as it was then the need for change and a shift of ownership is required.” Sam Conniff Allende

We are the System | Charting new waters, re-finding old maps

There is a significant opportunity to re-imagine the future. There are waters, territories and opportunities, for plundering that could create an education system more aligned with the needs of all children and the places we serve. Whilst our educational landscape is fragmented, the forces that have pushed and pulled academies together have also created the conditions for leaders to better shape our system, to act on it, not just in it. And we must, because we are the system and these are our shared waters.

We exist in a period of uncommon opportunity, where there is now enough maturity in our system, beyond the stormy waters of early academisation, and within calmer waters, for greater horizontal collaboration and shared responsibility for all children and every place. There is no Armada coming over the horizon, so it is time to be more pirate and engage in good rebellion, small arrrrgh.

“I’d rather be a pirate than join the navy” Steve Jobs

The next phase requires greater alignment of the soft and hard power within our system. And more crucially secure a shift in our intrinsic motivation to collectively do better for all, attaching greater currency for collaborative place-based leadership. Stronger extrinsic motivators as part of the new code, held by us, alongside regulators will galvanise the change we seek.

Treasure worth seeking | next-phase thinking

Our sector needs to do more to address the inequity in our society and seek greater social justice. We must better balance the haphazard opportunities that are not evenly distributed in our communities or between peers even in the same neighbourhood. We need to be braver and bolder to build our system to liberate and empower those who find themselves adrift and stranded in life. A band of educators collectively motivated to apply equity and build provision for those that most need an anchor.

The next-phase must build ‘great Trusts’ driven by a Trust Improvement Model that places Trust and place-based improvement at the heart of our mutiny. As we seek to connect and collaborate for the good of all children and to ‘educate a place’ the increased openness and connection will concurrently build stronger Trusts within a more capable system. This is the real treasure worth seeking: Trusts, in partnership, unearthing and aligning much greater capacity for securing social justice and inclusion.

“A major benefit of effective ‘place-based’ reform is seen as the provision of essential “glue” or coordination, by mobilising a collective sense of responsibility to reduce competition which drives local hierarchies and decreases the effects of disadvantage.” Cousin and Crossley-Holland

A new look crew required | Pirating, banding and plundering more capacity

We need a new look crew, educators banding together, collectively questing, compelled by a stronger yearning for the endless immensity and possibility of the sea ahead of us.

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Captains and crews must invest beyond the present boundaries, giving time and resource, committing to plunder and better directing the existing capacity towards those most adrift. New crews know that the real treasure is in levelling-up, in greater social justice for all, that is not constrained by our present boundaries. Re-finding geographic territories, places and communities across the land can offer greater opportunity and choice.

“There is one idea that whenever it has been applied has had the power to change the world. Cultures that shift from ‘I’ to ‘We’.” …restore the Common Good in divided times.” Jonathan Sacks

A new Pirate Code | seeking good trouble, a sector-led mutiny for our next phase

  1. “We, not I, Captain.” The next phase is one that must preference ‘We’ over ‘I’. To take shared responsibility for the education of all children across communities, not just those closest to us. A fundamental adoption of a ‘we’ mindset as the basis of our next phase.
  2. Build a values system that directs energy to that which is worth having. A sector that rewards those that connect and collaborate to achieve value beyond themselves and their time. A new values system that rewards those who close gaps for children and the gaps in our places, those who create coherence and partnerships to plunder resources and expertise for the greater good.
  3. Banding crews together. As system architects we must prioritise meaningful partnerships and collaboration between Trusts, Local Authorities and community partners. This is place-based collaborative leadership that connects crews who invest, across boundaries, in informal and formal alliances, releasing expertise. Place-based, because children grow-up in communities not in Trusts and their success and security is bound to that of their peers and their community.
  4. Unearthing old maps, seeking lost territories. We need to re-consider our boundaries, around the importance of ‘place’ to collectively “educate a city, a town, a county… a coherent locality.” By seeking to educate a locality we adjoin partners in shared endeavour to direct, release and use our collective resources and intelligence, to add more capacity and serve the whole. Kintsugi, repairing broken pottery by joining parts with gold, treating the repair as part of the history of a place, strengthening the whole; seeking gold.
  5. Captains and new crews needed. Into the next phase we need braver educators willing to navigate, beyond their waters, and venture into partnerships for the greater good of all children, in all communities. This requires stronger system leadership and collaborative structures that extend beyond settings and to depth, to educate a place.
  6. Connecting and strengthening Trusts. As Trusts work more in neighbouring waters, engaged in place-based improvement, with other crews, we have the basis for a Trust Improvement Model, a form of co-opetition. The next phase requires the development of great Trusts, improving in partnership, to secure greater social justice. Just as Roman concrete is strengthened by exposure to sea water, Trusts will improve through deeper connection beyond their waters: symbiotically.
  7. The treasure we seek, championing those unmoored and cast adrift. We should seek to win for all children. The success of our pirating and joint questing will be measured by how far we close gaps, particularly, the attainment and attendance of those under-resourced, lost at sea and those with needs that we are not yet meeting.  Our children and communities need a system and a collective quest for inclusive excellence. We should deliberately apply equity to close gaps across communities and not just seek the escape of a few.
  8. The laws of the sea. We care about what we measure and reward. Our accountability structures and regulators must align to reward the new code. Only if we align soft and hard power toward this quest and re-orientate the laws of the sea to articulate a new North Star, will we create the conditions where educators who boldly navigate by these stars are encouraged.

Setting Sail | being bolder and braver

“The moment we turn outward and concern ourselves with the welfare of others no less than with our own, we begin to change the world in the only way we can, one act at a time, one day at a time, one life at a time.”Jonathan Sacks

So, we should set sail, hold ourselves and each other to the new pirate code, seek good trouble and venture for greater coherence, collaboration and connection, so that we better serve those children stranded in our system and under-served by our places.

Of course, we don’t need everyone, we just need enough. Movements and mutinies tend to require surprisingly few pirates, engaged in counterintuitively small actions to transform our territories and secure greater social justice.

Time to be more pirate and seek good trouble, it is our time at the edge…

“It’s St. Elmo’s Fire. Electric flashes of light that appear in dark skies out of nowhere. Sailors would guide entire journeys by it … they thought they needed it to keep them going when times got tough. … We’re all going through this. It’s our time at the edge.” Billy

Dan Nicholls | March 2025

Growing Human Beans

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We are in the business of growing human beans, and beans have dreams.

Some have dreams that are delicate, wispy-misty bubbles, but, more frightsome, some beans believe dreams are for others and not for them. So, whilst all kiddle beans have dreams, some are lost before they grow to be whunking. For the world has a habit of bursting the bubbles of beans.

“Dreams,” he said, “is very mysterious things. They is floating around in the air like little wispy-misty bubbles. And all the time they is searching for sleeping people.”  Roald Dahl

Tread softly | zozimus is fragile 

We grow beans and all beans spread their dreams under our feet.

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams W.B. Yeats

So, tread softly, but do deliberately step and set the stage for dreams to appear, exist and grow. Dreams require our guardianship, for the moment a child ceases to believe, they step back and separate themselves from those whose dreams are well preserved and soundly protected. For the dreamless beans we are their only second chance: exunckly why we choose to be here, doing what we do.

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.”  Peter Pan

Leaders of Dreams | dealers in dreams

“Leadership is communicating to (human beans) their worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves.” Stephen Covey

We must curate the conditions that convince beans of their worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves. Leadership that deals in dreams and has the courage to apply equity, might just create the opportunities that change lives of human beans, because childhoods last a lifetime.

“Dreams is full of mystery and magic… Do not try to understand them.”  Roald Dahl

The land of less | surviving childhood

All human beans depend on supported opportunity to thrive. Opportunity, however, is largely a feature in the land of advantage. A place where beans go on quests, fueled by belief and held to high expectations. In their land, they stride sure-footedly, supported, resource laden, time enabled, in the direction of their dreams, with eyes affixed on the horizon.

Contrariwise, the land of disadvantage has less. Whilst, all beans are seeking to survive childhood, beans and often their grown-ups, in this land have less time, fewer resources and fleeting opportunity. Whilst ability and ambition are distributed equally in beans, dreams evaporate quicker in this land, quests revert to quiescence as under-resourced beans seek to survive, focused on the foreground, suspichy of their future.

Of course, the odd thing about the land of the less is that it is expensive to exist, to get by; there is a scarcity of money, and of resource and of time. But, we know this, and as educators we do have the resource and the expertise to offer the specific, targeted support that can lift horizons, to short cut and create cheat codes that close gaps and grow opportunity in the land of less. We are not yet brave or courageous enough to hack the system, one diddly and different bean at a time.

“Every human bean is diddly and different.” Roald Dahl

Igniting dreams | shifting self-image

Human beans are the sum of their experiences. Some of which are potent enough to ignite something deep inside making beans fall helplessly in love with their future passion. We are not yet experts in ignition; we pay too little attention to these life-changing moments and yet we are all shaped by them.

“Beneath every big talent lies an ignition story – the famously potent moment when a young person falls helplessly in love with their future passion.” Dan Coyle

All children are social beans, deeply sensitive to the words and actions of all adults. In every action, interaction and intonation we choose to construct or de-construct, to convey status, or not. Our role is to ignite and guard dreams, secure excellent provision and apply equity to gift beans a new notion of what is possible, daring them to dream, guiding them to look up and beyond.

“Once a student sees that he or she is capable of excellence, that student is never quite the same. There is a new self-image, a new notion of possibility.” Ron Berger

Fields of dreams | seeding serendipity

Only the application of equity in the right conditions can overcome the insidious influence and impact of having less. We must seed greater opportunity, deliberately to both specifically target and to increase the probability that unmoored beans will grow, flourish and accumulate advantage over time. For success is not a random act, it arises out of a predictable set of circumstances, more readily and typically evident in the advantaged realm.

“…success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities …replace the patchwork of lucky breaks, context and arbitrary advantages that determine success…with a system that provides opportunities and the conditions for all to feel success.” Malcolm Gladwell

To accumulate advantage for those with less, we should recreate the conditions of the land of more, being braver to give what is specifically needed so that beans do not feel unremarkable and separated from their world.

Full of Beans | inspiring lives with opportunity and choice

“Somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world.” Matilda

We are full of beans, they are everywhere, and so are their dreams. Together, we have a responsibility, to grow both beans and dreams. To find that little bit of magic asleep inside each and everyone. In doing so we might just influence the lives of those who exist in the land of less, who carry more, who need, indeed rely upon, our expertise and our belief in them. As enthusiasts in life we can inspire the lives of those with less with greater opportunity and choice. But we should choose to close gaps at full speed, to embrace it with both arms, to become passionate about it, because lukewarm is no good.

“I began to realise how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. If you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it full speed, Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all else become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good.” Roald Dahl

Dan Nicholls | January 2025

Poor | inspiring childhoods shaped by poverty

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Pause. Before we launch into the new term, we should check we are prioritising what matters… serving those who need us most.

Childhoods that are constrained by poverty are shaped by steep challenges, limited resources, and few opportunities. Children surviving under the weight of hardship, cope with more, with less help, are more vigilant, anxious, and mistrusting of the world they navigate. Childhoods that are shaped by poverty lead to adulthoods that never quite escape the impact of growing up poor, because childhoods last a lifetime (Floella Benjamin).

“Even as an adult the ripples of that (poverty) still affect me.” (Katriona O’Sullivan)

As educators we must do more to understand what it is to grow up poor, to grasp some understanding of the lived experience and the visceral truth. We should cut through our own jargon, our own perceptions and assumptions to understand the barriers, the struggle and the occupying weight of what some children are forced to carry.

“‘Poor’ cuts through a lot of jargon – words like ‘disadvantaged’, ‘underprivileged’, ‘deprived’, ‘under-class’, ‘under-resourced’. Words that have their place but don’t capture the visceral truth of what it is to grow up the way I did. The way thousands of children are growing up right now.” (Katriona O’Sullivan)

We need equity | inspiring lives with greater opportunity and choice

“We need equity in education, not equality. If someone can’t see straight because the world is falling in around them, we need to raise them up to clearer skies.” (Katriona O’Sullivan)

In these times, as schools return, we must apply the equity required to enable all children to flourish, to clear their skies, and to not feel marginalised in their world. “We cannot keep pretending it’s an equal opportunities education system. It is not.” (Katriona O’Sullivan) Applying equity is giving what is needed, offering the opportunities for more children to thrive, to have greater choice in their lives, to open doors that let in the future.

“There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.” (Graham Greene)

This is not about planning and plotting an escape for a few but creating the conditions for all children to feel success in their school and their community. Applying equity to create the opportunities and experiences that inspire lives and unlock doors.

Tipping the odds | valuing what matters

As educators, we need to choose to better use our power, to be braver, to tip the odds and create the conditions that enable more children to flourish in their lives, where they are. To do so requires us to value and measure what matters, high attainment and attendance for the most vulnerable. This reveals the quality of provision and the closing of gaps is the evidence of success. We can and should do better.

“I was lucky, the timing for me was right – I managed but so many others don’t. The world is less because of that. The education system can and should do better. We all should do better.” (Katriona O’Sullivan)

Children living in poverty are not problems to be solved, the system is mis-aligned, lop-sided and intransigent. An uneven playing field that starts from birth and is exacerbated though childhood. Our system creates adverse conditions, fails to value diversity and has narrow success measures that perpetuate the present order and condemns those with the least. Poor assumptions and preconceived views of ability and ambition fail to unleash the potential and contribution of too many children. We need to re-engineer and reconfigure our system, avoiding the traps of meritocracy.

Our deficit discourse, language and vocabulary, both intended and unintended is deafening and maintaining the status quo, ensuring that a child’s poverty extends into all aspects of their lives. Only the deliberate application of equity addresses the a-symmetry of childhoods. Equity, tips the odds.

The deeper implications of poverty | levelling up

“Most of the time being poor felt like a sodden blanket was lying heavy across my shoulders, dragging me down into dark waters.” (Katriona O’Sullivan)

Whilst poverty is fundamentally about having less money, the impact of poverty extends far beyond, eroding self-confidence and a sense of worth:

“… ‘poor’ for me was also feeling like I had no worth. It was poverty of mind, poverty of stimulation, poverty of safety and poverty of relationships. Being poor controls how you see yourself, how you trust and speak, how you see the world and how you dream.” (Katriona O’Sullivan)

If we are to influence how children see the world, how they dream and how they build their future, we need to be bolder, to call out our unhelpful narratives, excuses, and assumptions that fixate on escape and tales of rags to riches. We must enrich their world, create more opportunity, more experiences, offer greater belief in individual children so that they feel more success and have stronger self-belief. You’ve got this.

“… opportunity, money and support. The middle classes are born with those three things in spades; the poor are born with none of them. And the truth is, we are losing some brilliant minds in the trenches of poverty.” (Katriona O’Sullivan).

Beyond the brilliant minds, there is considerable benefit to society when we create conditions that include, that value diversity and broaden access to success. Conditions that privilege all children disproportionately levels-up those who are traversing a world that is loaded against them.

“Sometimes, even these days, I feel like an interloper. I need reassurance sometimes that I am okay. Deserving. Worthwhile.” (Katriona O’Sullivan)

The smallest act | surfing on the ripples of others

Our influence on those closest to us and those that depend on us is more significant than we believe. How we are, what we say, do, behave, deeply affect those around us; children particularly so, who seek clues and are vigilant of snakes…

“Are there snakes here? …you become hyperaware. Mistrust becomes a tool of survival. Whenever I met anyone in authority, I was instantly suspicious, instantly mistrustful… it is actually a safety meter.” (Katriona O’Sullivan)

We have an opportunity as educators, as schools and trusts to shape and inspire lives, to remove snakes, hold ladders, create the conditions for children to feel secure, to belong, to have status, to feel less anxious, less wired, more trusting and to grow in an environment that values the uniqueness of each child. And one of our greatest gifts is to give children their voice, the oracy to confidently contribute, to step forward, and stop their lives being narrated by others.

“My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.” (Tara Westover)

Sadly, not our present system, which is perfectly designed to create the reverse, to exclude children from and within schools. Schools need to be riddled with details, interactions, and sparks that pivot young lives.

“Every development in life pivots on small, contingent details, ad infinitum. We’d like to pretend it isn’t true, but reality doesn’t care what we think. We forever surf on the ripples of others.” (Brian Klass)

But, here is the thing, whilst our influence on others carries significant responsibility, humans are beautifully contagious; And, amazingly, importantly, thankfully, even the simplest acts, set of words, an acknowledgement, a moment of belief in another, changes every constellation, shapes a life and creates ripples for others to surf.

“The smallest act in the most limited circumstances bears the seed of boundlessness, because one deed, and sometimes one word, suffices to change every constellation.” (Hannah Arendt)

Excellence | Expectation | Equity | Currency | Culture | …our identity

So, at the start of term, we should pause, and plan to create the conditions for more to flourish, to apply equity and build schools that privilege all children and disproportionately support those who need us most. Prioritising what matters…

…to seek excellent educational provision: the strongest curriculum, enacted well, inspiring thought and stalking awe, where assessment follows learning to meet need.

…to never lower our expectations of what a child can achieve, because if we let them off, we let them down. Focused on high attainment and attendance, to build belonging and gift agency so that all children possess the keys to thrive through childhood, into adulthood. Because there is no lack of ambition, and a significant desire for self-agency …

“We don’t need to waste time raising people’s ambitions. Idleness and low aspiration have never explained the lack of mobility. Presented with greater opportunity, most people grasped them …(seeking) the control over their lives and (the) choices that offered.” (Selina Todd)

…to apply equity, the permission to give what is specifically needed, to meet need, remove barriers, do different for those that need us most and give strong, timely, specific feedback, the golden thread of an advantaged upbringing. To need want to do different, to create the pathways and encouragement for children to ‘play on’ (Jemima Montag).

“I am giving you this feedback because I believe in you.” (Jo Boaler)

…to create incentives, currency, performance indicators that place value and reward the closing of gaps and gap-closers, so that no child is left behind, written off or able to be discounted. The attainment and attendance of disadvantage, reveals the true quality of provision.

…to build culture that privileges disadvantage and those in poverty, unswervingly never giving up on a child, because it is who we are and what we do. A commitment etched into our identity.

Perhaps then…

…we can create the conditions for colleagues to wittingly and unwittingly inspire lives with more opportunity so that we create the conditions for those living in poverty to prosper in their world, in these times. It is why we are here … to be the Myles for others.

“If not for Myles, I wouldn’t have been on that train. As distant as he was, his impact on my life was still tangible – only wishing I had the chance to thank Myles for the path he unwittingly set me on.” (Ashley John-Baptiste)

so, breathe, commit … and go inspire lives

Much of this piece is inspired by Katriona O’Sullivan, whose book “Poor” is an extraordinary exploration of what it is to grow up in poverty. Read it.  

Dr Dan Nicholls | The White Horse Federation | August 2024

Be Braver | heroes needed

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As educators, we choose to educate children, all children, and to make a difference to the lives of others; it is what brought us here. We do this surrounded by good people seeking to use the power of education, in darkening times, against the backcloth of a fracturing social contract and weak social justice, to do good. It is a noble quest, but for those that need us most, at this time, it is a quest that we are not winning, at least not collectively winning. We need to show greater courage, to be braver, to do more to close the gaps that tarnish our system; heroes needed.

Being Braver

Educators definitely do care, really care, about closing the disadvantage gap, we deeply do, and yet this care is not enough, because gaps are growing and our system is not working for too many children; far too many are becoming invisible. We are all involved, we all have skin in this game and we are all implicated in our inability to close the gap.

We could choose the comfort of an external locus of control, and say too big, too ingrained, too difficult and seek comfort in our personal insignificance, against the magnitude of the prevailing system; a resigned acceptance of how life is. Or we could choose to become braver, recognising that small (and big), deliberate strategies, the application of equity, advocacy and action, challenging norms, attitudes and behaviours can tip the system. Adjoined effort of collective strength to change and transform provision that privileges all children. To call out, build provision and influence a system so that it disproportionately advantages disadvantaged children; levelling the playing field, viewing our world through the disadvantage lens.

Whilst the forces that perpetuate the gaps, are insidious and part of the accepted fabric of schools and society, we have the power and agency to challenge our cultural norms, accepted truths, and attitudes that prevail in our system. We must be braver and bolder to build schools, provision and a system (including our accountability system) that addresses the chasm between those that have and those that have not; it will need to look and be quite different.

Being more Ferocious | An active not passive process.  

We need to be more ferocious, more tenacious in creating the conditions that enable our disadvantaged learners to flourish. This requires educators to be more honest, to ask uncomfortable questions and fiercely educate those that need us the most. To fiercely educate is to replicate the stage-managed, high expectation and sharpened elbows of an advantaged childhood. Being fierce means guarding a child’s education, expecting much, staying alongside, pushing from behind, consistently and persistently championing individual children. A shared endeavour to lift lives, one by one. Creating the conditions for a movement to lift-up a generation; a deeper, more ferocious, expression of care.

We are being braver and more ferocious in some schools that deliberately act to build cultures and approaches that successfully privilege disadvantage, that exercise equity and create the conditions that close gaps. Cultures that privilege all children and not just those who benefit from an education system “…which has been constructed and is maintained primarily in the interests of those who find learning easy*.” (Ben Newmark)

*an easiness born out of supported opportunity and experiences over time that present as more able (even talented).

Apply Equity | to give what an individual actually needs.

We must be braver and more courageous to apply equity, so that many more children get the care, focus, provision, resources, supported opportunities and experiences they, specifically, need. Adults willing to be braver, to question how things presently work to apply greater equity. This will require us to do different and feel happy to do differently; gaps are widening under the present conditions; equality achieved through equity, hunt don’t fish.

“Fair doesn’t mean giving every child the same thing, it means giving every child what they need.” (Rick Lavoie)

Privileging disadvantage | see through the lens, always.

We need to try harder to really understand what it is to be disadvantaged (in each setting and individual circumstance). Understanding the impact of the system, of attitudes, norms and beliefs that accumulate disadvantage. To privilege disadvantage everywhere and in everything requires us to prioritise disadvantaged learners in all decision making, in provision, in opportunity, a culture of ambition for all children, going beyond just caring. A system that firmly privileges disadvantage in all that it does, such that it becomes the norm; a system perfectly designed to close gaps. How we do anything has an impact, positive or negative, on disadvantaged learners. It is written deep in the ‘cultural fabric‘ of any organisation.

How we do anything, is how we do everything.

Measure what matters | attainment mobility.

“You should measure things you care about. If you’re not measuring, you don’t care and you don’t know.” (Steve Howard)

How far do we evaluate our provision and performance based on the attendance, attainment, and progress of disadvantaged learners; even over? This is the true test of the quality of provision, as advantaged children bring much of what they need to school, whereas disadvantaged learners rely on schools to close the gaps.

“…the evidence suggests that national education policy needs to be rebalanced to recognise the job many schools do in countering stark inequalities outside the school gates, while maintaining high expectations for under-resourced students.” (Lee Elliott Major)

We need systems and the system to motivate, give greater permission and reward provision that chases disadvantage attainment (and attendance); attainment mobility as the truest measure of the quality of provision. Attainment Mobility is the reversing of delayed attainment, linguistic under-privilege and lack of early opportunity,so that children self-select (not self-de-select) and accumulate advantage (not disadvantage) through life.

Attendance first | every day missed, widens the gap

“One measure of poverty is how little you have. Another is how difficult you find it to take advantage of what others try to give you.” (Michael Lewis)

One way to guarantee the gap widening, is to accept poor attendance, everyday a disadvantaged learner is not in school the gap grows, they cannot take advantage of what is offered to them. It takes a whole school to improve attendance, because it is a team sport, with an individual focus. Seeking preventative strategies based on really knowing our individual children and families, as well as our responsive actions, reaching out and building relationships that encourages/expects attendance. We must commit to persistently and insistently working to remove barriers to attendance. So that we, meet them there, apply equity, ensure that they are pushed and pulled to school, resisting the forces that encourage retreat.

Give Status | it is free.

Disadvantaged learners are more likely to have an external locus of control, to step back and to opt out of learning. Our sense of status determines how far we belong, connect, and ultimately whether we feel part of the game. If you do not see yourself as part of the game, you will opt out and protect yourself from further status harm by playing a different game or cutting losses to avoid playing and failing.

As individuals, we have an un-ending well of status and to give status is a fundamental human gift. To give status is to be interested in every child, who they are, what they are doing, smiling, acknowledging, encouraging, noticing, being present. It costs us nothing, is a measure of our shared values and plays out in every interaction. How far are schools places of status how far are all colleagues truly on the side of children?

I believe in you | An invitation to dance (always)

Every child needs to have at least one adult who believes in them. Magic happens when all colleagues believe in all children.

To grow up advantaged is to have adults who deeply believe in you, hold you to high expectations, encouraging (demanding) participation in supported opportunities over time. A childhood that encourages risk taking, whilst holding a safety net and offering commentary, narrating the journey through life, reaffirming and strengthening a child’s internal locus of control incrementally, day by day.

And in this we see what must be done, to re-design the system to enable disadvantaged to participate, to have supported opportunity and wider social connectivity, with a back stop of someone who believes in them, who creates a safety net and supports them as they interpret life. Get up, go again, you have agency, you are always invited to dance.

Lost in Transition | mind the gap

Children navigate many transitions as they move through their education. Advantaged children leap confidently across these transitions, whilst disadvantaged gingerly and uncertainly step across; this is not for me. Whether it is the summer break (any break), moving schools, moving years, options or pathway choices, advantaged families step forward, stage manage, resource and guide readiness and decision making. At the same time disadvantaged learners get lost in transitions and lose connection, disconnected from seizing opportunities. In these transitions they are reminded that this is a world that happens to them, they step back, not forward and the gap widens, on repeat. We need to be braver and apply equity to stage manage and connect children so they find (not lose) themselves in transition.

Curriculum is the key lever | Quality of teaching the determining factor

The curriculum, and particularly what we choose to value, how we structure it and how we enact it, is the key lever and our best bet for disadvantaged learners. This long-term investment seeks to secure the key substantive and disciplinary concepts and powerful knowledge required to achieve attainment mobility for all children; placing our chips on curriculum, the golden ticket. Securing the spine of the curriculum (and tight to the spine), the core concepts and powerful knowledge that weaves the warp and weft of children’s schema to accumulate more, later. Really understanding where children are and teaching the next bit, assuming less and adapting teaching to meet need. Measuring and targetting the attainment of disadvantaged learners (and progress) as the true (only) measure of teaching quality.

Being braver

Children need us to be braver, to be more ferocious, to use our power and agency to apply equity, to give status, to measure what matters, to build culture and curriculum that closes gaps; attendance first. And if we do so, we just might create the conditions that disproportionately support disadvantaged learners to accumulate advantage and close the gaps that we currently perpetuate.

Are we brave enough to re-think, to be unswerving in building provision (schools and our system) to apply the equity and give the resource required to those children who are under-resourced, who need us to be braver?     

A quest worth pursuing. Heroes needed.

Dan Nicholls | December 2023

Fiercely educate…

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… children who are presently disadvantaged.

If we are to overcome the forces in our society and schools that insidiously widen gaps, between those that have and those that have not, we need to be more ferocious, more tenacious in creating the conditions that enable our disadvantaged learners to flourish. This requires educators to be more honest, to ask uncomfortable questions and make braver decisions to fiercely educate those that need us the most.

Photo by Efe Yagiz Soysal on Unsplash

To fiercely educate is to replicate the stage-managed, high expectation and sharpened elbows of an advantaged childhood. Being fierce means guarding a child’s education, expecting much, staying alongside, pushing from behind, consistently and persistently championing individual children.

An advantaged childhood holds, expects and elevates children, who are fiercely loved and as a result feel more secure.

“Okay, well, Eleanor has this mother. She intimidated me at first actually because she just – she’s fierce. Fiercely loving. … but I could tell she felt safe in that house. She grew up feeling safe and fiercely loved.”

“And you and I didn’t get that, not because we didn’t deserve it, we just got dealt something else. But the people who did get that love, they grew up to be different from us. More secure.”

Coco Mellors | Cleopatra and Frankenstein

To be fiercely loved* is to be challenged, extended, stretched, to reach and risk, and at the same time, to be held tightly, more secure. “You will be brave, I have got you.”

*the emphasis is on fiercely rather than loved. Families who are socio-economically deprived do not love their children less, often quite the opposite, but the time, money, space to create opportunity and supported experiences to translate that love, ferociously, is compromised at every turn.

Advantaged families interpret the world for their children, translating experiences and interactions to maintain their sense of security and renew their agency. Setting and re-setting a desired narrative of what it is to be and feel successful, to step forward once more, even when the randomness of life and experiences intrude beyond the home. There is always an ongoing invitation to dance. Sitting out is not an option.

To grow up advantaged is to step forward through a life punctuated by opportunities, reaching, risking and stepping forward, it is a secure pursuit. These are childhoods, with guide ropes and safety harnesses, that see failure as an obstacle on the path to eventual success.

“If you are lucky enough to be born in a world made in your image, you probably think of a failure as an obstacle on the path to eventual success. If you are a marginalised person in any way you internalise that failure more closely.”

Elizabeth Day

Without a deep sense of security, a disadvantaged child is far more likely to internalise failure more closely. It is precisely this self-reflection, the connection of failure with self that perpetuates over time and maintains an inhibiting mindset that convinces that it would be safer not to try. Without the ferocity of expectation, the unwavering (taught) belief in their own agency, a child’s hand goes up fewer times, they step back rather than stride forward and live with a constraining belief that the world is not built in their image or for their circumstance.

If we step forward less we tend to surround ourselves with others who are also less likely to step forward in life. It is the five closest individuals with whom you measure your status, the ones that set the bar, the ones we compare against. And where we create schools within schools we set expectations of what is possible (and not possible). We must work harder to cross-connect social circles, orchestrating and intervening to be more inclusive.

“Each starling is only ever aware of five other birds,” she said. “One above, one below, one in front and either side, like a star. They move with those five, and that’s how they stay in formation.”

“Who are your five then?” asked Cleo. “The ones you watch?”

Coco Mellors

It is an inconvenient truth that schools create these self-fulfilling groups, reinforce the conditions for advantage and disadvantage to accumulate. We are the problem more often than we admit, more often than we see, more often than we realise. To see the conditions we create, those that we have come to accept, we must apply the disadvantage lens on ourselves and our schools, be more honest and evaluate what we are willing to accept, what we hold up and measure as success. This is about confronting and tackling the perpetuating inequity, seeking to halt social fractures at a time when society is fracturing.

Hope: to want something to happen or to be true, and usually have a good reason to think that it might.

A childhood of advantage is one of agency and hope; a life on an exciting journey of opportunity, where what is wanted, sought after, is within reach and based on previous experiences, have a good reason to think it might be achieved. And if it does not, any failure slides off, it does not define. After all, the failure is not about me reaching out, because I act on the world. And yet for our disadvantaged children each failure is another hit on self-belief, self-image, another example of the world acting on them. “This world is not for me.”

An advantaged childhood also has purpose (one insisted on, and then internalised by the child), a beacon that directs effort and demands persistence. We must work harder to create, expect and articulate purpose so that it fuels the persistence required to close gaps.

“When we have a purpose, we are able not only to endure and persist but also to provide a beacon that reminds us of what’s important and to make the right decision at the right moment.”

Steve Magnus

Too many journeys through school are riddled with children being let off, in conditions of low expectation where interactions are compromised by collusion. We are prone to making poor assumptions about background, present levels of attainment, context, aspiration, resilience; missing the fact that we are both the problem and the solution.

We need to be more honest and braver as educationalists, guarding each child’s education and building great schools that deliberately step in to create pathways for disadvantaged learners to thrive and flourish. It takes the whole team to maintain provision that privileges disadvantage everywhere, only shared endeavour has any chance of systematically closing gaps; culture over lists of good intentions/interventions.

So:

  • There is little in this world more powerful than someone who deeply believes in you; educators have that power. An unconditional acceptance from a trusted adult gives a child the warm sense of belonging; a psychological safety that says we believe in you. Unpicking disadvantage is a team sport, focused on individuals to apply equity.
  • We are disproportionately influenced by those that we spend time with (sometimes chosen, sometimes destined, sometimes orchestrated); schools need to remove the school within school phenomenon – our choices around setting, staffing, curriculum either perpetuates disadvantage or removes it.
  • To fiercely educate is to have educational provision that reaches those that need us most. We need to measure what matters: the attendance and attainment of disadvantaged learners. Attendance first… we cannot fiercely educate any child we cannot see.
  • Our journey through education is disproportionately shaped by small acts; these are rare, often serendipitous experiences that shape us the most. How far do we purposefully engineer and create these moments of ignition within a child’s education so that they see themselves differently?

The disproportionate influence of five sentences within the novel of our lives.

  • Our interactions, language and the attention we give to others defines our attitude towards them and influences the way children see themselves. It is easy to understate the importance of culture and collective attitude in schools.
  • A child’s self-belief, self-confidence and self-image can be so fragile that inconsequential comments, experiences and actions can erode any belief that exists. As educators we can choose to fill or not fill these lockers. Removing deficit and neutral discourse in our shared language really matters; our words make a difference, both ways.
  • Simply adding “I am giving you this feedback because I believe in you,” changed students’ learning trajectories significantly (Cohen & Garcia, 2014).

“They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”

Carl Buehner

  • We need great teaching in great schools to understand where children are in their learning and teach the next bit. Seeking to hunt not fish and to apply the equity that disadvantaged learners need. Weaving nets to catch the curriculum.
  • We are hard-wired to see success as talent and gift and not the expression of supported opportunity and accumulated hard work over time; it is the latter that disadvantage learners need, it is the former that perpetuate poor attitudes to individual potential and widens gaps.
  • We may well be witnessing a significant shift in the social contract. The contract held between families and school is eroding, relationships and attitudes are shifting. Whilst we wrestle with a whole range of challenges we must not forget, rather increase our investment in the individual children that walk into our schools everyday.
  • … you have the power to change lives, to weave a future for children, just as the threads of society are unravelling for too many children. You are the hope, for many the only second chance.

“History will judge us by the difference we make in the everyday lives of children.”

Nelson Mandela

Dan Nicholls | May 2023

The world is getting darker | bringing light to those who need it most

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“Of course, poverty isn’t the only way in which people get overlooked by society; there are many ways that the world has of saying, “you don’t belong here.” …  I wanted to say, “yes, you DO belong. We all belong here.” (Tom Percival, 2022, from “The Invisible”)

Our world is getting darker. In the enveloping gloom, individual children are becoming invisible, trapped by circumstance. We urgently need to wield our collective power and throw light on those who are fading. If we choose to work in education, and we do, then we also choose to make a difference to the lives of all children. And if it is about all children then we are compelled, through our shared duty of care, to tackle the eye-watering and widening inequality. Together we must secure far greater equity through education, giving individuals what they specifically need and seeking to close the growing chasm between those that have and those that have not.

It is already too dark, for too many: the cost-of-living crisis, fuel, inflation, pandemic, political uncertainty, instability, conflict, the education system… has disenfranchised and exacerbated hopelessness. Everywhere you look in education the gap is widening. Whilst advantaged children and families have some (much) immunity, the world is forcing disadvantaged children and families to re-prioritise and step further back. This is cumulatively, and seemingly irreversibly, eroding status, belonging and undermining esteem.

Over 4 million children, and rising, are growing up in poverty. Everywhere, families are struggling to meet their basic needs, forcing education and wider experiences to be inaccessible, unaffordable (in time and money). Securing the basic needs overwhelms, gradually removing the colour and slowly, intractably dissolving individuals who are ever more invisible in our world; hidden in plain sight.

”(Our) focus on (eye)sight means that we often are at a loss on how to deal with things that are invisible… and it works against us when it’s … invisible over time (like disadvantage). When there’s a conflict between what we know and what we see, we often default to the wrong one.” (Seth Godin)

As educators, we are, for many children, the only second chance, but we are evidently not yet meeting that challenge. There is a heartbreakingly large number of individuals fading within our society and in our schools. But it is not hopeless, we should take heart, because we have what we need. We can create the conditions that offer hope, build status, esteem and agency; empowering children to become more visible. Ensuring that those experiencing disadvantage, are given the opportunities and experiences to be the masters of their fate and captains of their soul. (William Henley)

Together we are obligated to tackle this invisibility and empower the marginalised, at a time when we are also distracted by these darkening times. Our collective endeavour, is to use education to illuminate and bring more colour, to more lives. It is through our leadership and in teams, that we can unswervingly focus on our best levers, teaching and culture to bring light to this darkness and to say, “yes, you do belong.”

The following explores the key bets for securing greater equity through education for presently disadvantaged children. Whilst far from exhaustive, they seek to stop children from fading and becoming invisible.

This builds on What if we are the hope? | Closing the gap curriculum as the lever  

Disadvantage even over… attendance first (culture)

“One measure of poverty is how little you have. Another is how difficult you find it to take advantage of what others try to give you.” (Michael Lewis)

One way to guarantee the invisibility is to accept poor attendance, everyday a disadvantaged learner is not in school the gap grows. It takes a whole school to improve attendance, because it is a team sport, with an individual focus. Seeking preventative strategies based on really knowing our individual children and families, as well as our responsive actions, reaches out and encourages/expects attendance. We must commit to persistently and insistently working to remove barriers to attendance. So that we, meet them there, apply equity, ensure that they are pushed and pulled to school, resisting the forces that encourage retreat.

It is not good enough to just have good provision, we must support individuals to be present, visible and to take advantage. This is, of course, tightly linked to the quality of education, no one actively misses high quality provision, or the best party in town. Disadvantage attendance is the one measure that can be chased and improved every day; and every day counts when we tackle invisibility.

Measure what we care about (Leadership)

“You should measure things you care about. If you’re not measuring, you don’t care and you don’t know.” (Steve Howard)

Not measuring what matters adds another layer of invisibility. Measuring what matters focuses our accountability systems and our attention towards enacting the level and depth of equity required to make a difference. Giving permission and incentivising colleagues to chase what is worth having; giving children what they specifically, individually need.

“This is Vanity Fair a world where everyone is striving for what is not worth having.” (William Thackery)

The early advantage, linguistic privilege and supported opportunity that advantaged children enjoy, accumulates success, regardless and sometimes in spite of school. With less early advantage, disadvantaged learners need schools to be excellent, only then will provision reach and achieve the equity required to accumulate advantage. It is the attainment of disadvantaged learners, even over, that is the best measure of the effectiveness of provision. How far a school or Trust achieves attainment mobility and closes gaps to be in line with advantaged learners is the barometer of the quality of provision.

“Making good use of school time is the single most egalitarian function the schools perform, because for disadvantaged children, school time is the only academic learning time, whereas advantaged students can learn a lot outside of school.” (Hirsch)

Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing (Teaching)

“Teaching quality is important. It is arguably the greatest lever at our disposal for improving the life chances of the young people in our care, particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.” (Peps McCrea, 2016)

The quality of education, particularly teaching, and the culture of schools are the main things for securing equity and growing great humans, with the agency needed to exploit their future. This is the bet, consistently applied, over the 12,000 lessons and the 15,000 hours they are in school (age 4 to 16), that will reverse delayed attainment, linguistic under-privilege and accumulate advantage.

Disadvantage learners disproportionately thrive when teaching is strong. When it is weak, advantaged learners still make sense of it, whilst disadvantage learners fall even further behind.  When teaching is purposeful, precise and where language and explanation includes and does not exclude learners, disadvantage learners make more progress. Where expectations remain high and where we scaffold to fill gaps in understanding, spiralling and bouncing back and forth in the curriculum we secure a narrative that has the footholds, ropes and ladders for disadvantaged learners. We need to avoid presumptions of language, background knowledge and self-efficacy (Marc Rowland). Of course, disadvantage learners really need us to follow learning to meet need, to explain clearly and well, model expertly and to engage in explanation; making learning explicit, coherent and accessible.

Viewing teaching through the disadvantaged lens forces us to really explore, know and understand where learners are, find out what they know, what they don’t know and teach the next bit (Asubel). Whilst knowledge is power, it is understanding and application of knowledge that is king. The mind best understands facts when they are woven into a conceptual fabric, such as a narrative, mental map, or intuitive theory. Disconnected facts in the mind are like unlinked pages on the Web: they might as well not exist (Stephen Pinker). Teaching that deeply understands subject, the substantive concepts, its architecture, offers the best route map for disadvantage learners; it weaves nets.

Weaving curriculum nets (Teaching)

Decisions about what knowledge to teach is an exercise of power and therefore a weighty ethical responsibility. What we choose to teach confers or denies power (Christine Counsell). There is nothing more important for disadvantaged learners than a well sequenced, conceptually coherent curriculum that efficiently, and intentionally enacts the best of what has been thought and said. If the curriculum is overloaded, disconnected, full of arbitrary knowledge we will not be weaving conceptual nets and much will slip through as unresolved cognitive conflict. It is the progressive and precise sequence, coherence and clarity that disadvantaged learners really need.

When we teach out of sequence, disadvantage learners assume that they do not understand, and this encourages further retreat and desk top truancy. Really, deeply thinking about why this, why now is so important – we often seek to cover too much, to move on too quickly and to be activity/task driven, instead of securing the conceptual spine that, once in place, will hold and accelerate future learning. Disadvantage learners need us to really know our subject and the progression, they neither have the time or the wider schema to make sense and find their way through the arbitrary or the ill-sequenced. Curriculum is arguably the most important lever that we have, it is further developed here: Closing the gap curriculum as the lever 

Vocabulary | give the keys of language (Teaching)

“Education is the process of preparing us for the big world and the big world has big words. The more big words I know, the better I will survive in it. Because there are hundreds of thousands of big words in English, I cannot learn them all. But this does not mean that I shouldn’t try to learn some.” (David Crystal)

Big words, for a big world. Vocabulary gifts the keys of language, the basis for deeper understanding, but even more importantly gives access to culture, enfranchises and privileges learners. Being vocabulary-poor disenfranchises and excludes, it takes the colour away. Teaching (exploring, marvelling at) words in context, in subjects, connected to big ideas and concepts makes children feel clever, builds esteem and, most importantly, the words are stickier in schema.

“The large amount of school time spent in direct word study is not being spent on systemically becoming familiar with new knowledge domains, where word learning occurs naturally, and up to four times faster, without effort.” (Hirsch, 2017)

It is a feature of growing up in an advantaged home that words become jewels in conversations. And it is the etymology and structure of words that really intrigue and make individuals feel clever. Gifting a wealth of words to children, unlocks doors into the past, into interesting places and times, uncovering provenance, quirky connections and ; Joy filled learning.

By paying attention to vocabulary growth at the micro level, we can better understand it, we can go to cultivating it and in so doing every child will be gifted a wealth of words.” (Alex Quigley, 2018)

Oracy | valuing everyone’s voice (Teaching)

“It may seem an obvious thing to say, but one of the best things we can do with young children is to have interesting and enjoyable conversations with them.” (Michael Rosen)

Oracy exposes language, vocabulary, thought, cultural capital and understanding to all. Our sentences and words open the window to our understanding and how individuals navigate the world. Disadvantaged learners need full immersion in rich conversation, be given permission to listen, encouragement to be heard and the safety to articulate understanding out loud. In doing so they fire the connections, build word wealth and secure schema that grows confidence, cognition and enables musing and exploration. It is why we should be picky on full response, why we should provoke and encourage discussion and debate. It is also on this sea of talk that great writing happens. We need to articulate our ideas and thoughts, our opinions and cogitations to bring colour to learning, to revel in thinking and for individuals to find their voice.

“If we are truly committed to empowering every young person regardless of their background, with the belief that their voice has value and the ability to articulate their thoughts so others will listen, then it is time to get talking in class.” (Beccy Earnshaw)

Reading | opening eyes to multiple worlds (Teaching)

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” (Dr Seuss)

Reading and the development of reading is fundamental for accumulating advantage. It is hard to over-state the importance of reading: it develops cultural capital, comprehension, vocabulary, thinking, empathy, inference, confidence, concentration, oracy, writing, esteem… all the ingredients required to achieve attainment mobility. Alex Quigley offers this helpful summary on developing reading:

  • Start with careful planning a broad and balanced curriculum that brings a world of knowledge alive.
  • Ensure pupils do lots and lots of reading of challenging texts.
  • Support pupils to develop, connect and cohere their knowledge.
  • Give pupils targeted, text sensitive support to deploy reading comprehension strategies, with a gradual release of responsibility.
  • Avoid over-practising comprehension assessments that can compromise curriculum time for read extended texts. (Alex Quigley, 2022)

More than any other subject, English – and especially reading – gives pupils access to the rest of the curriculum and is fundamental to their educational success. (Ofsted, English Research Review, 2022)

Hunt don’t fish (Teaching)

“Fair doesn’t mean giving every child the same thing, it means giving every child what they need.” (Rick Lavoie)

We are pre-programmed in education to seek equality, which in most areas of life is essential. But disadvantaged learners need more than equality, they need equity, they need what they need, not what everyone needs. This ensures that we privilege and prioritise the needs of disadvantage learners – to know exactly where they are and give them what they need – and to do that we need to hunt not fish. To fish is to cast the net and do the same for all (privileging advantaged) to hunt is to seek to meet the individual needs (privileging disadvantage).

Advantaged childhood; one of high-demand and expectations (Culture)

Sit up at the table, elbows, don’t talk with your mouth full, use the right tense, sit up, can you rephrase that, do you know where that word comes from, you know that links to this and what we saw there, finish all of that, put you knife and fork together, dry-up, put away, finish your homework, when is your tutoring, tidy your room, what time is training? have you got your violin out for tomorrow? do you need a new reading book? what time do I pick you up from rehearsal? we are going to the theatre on Saturday after hockey, have you applied for that part time job?….

To grow up advantaged, is to experience the constant drip of expectation, self-fulfilling and accumulating advantage over time. The shaping, informing, correcting, pickiness, opportunity laden, supported experiences add up to add advantage that presents to adults as innate ability, even talent. Those experiencing disadvantage (only an economic label) have had fewer opportunities, less education and guided experiences, which slows progress, accumulates disadvantage and presents as less able (less talented) and once this sets-in, it holds on through life. This perpetuates the opposite of a virtuous circle, a vicious circle, where we consistently over time (perhaps subconsciously) expect less of those with delayed attainment and increase the gap. Disadvantage is a process (born out of circumstance(s)), it is not an event (Marc Rowland).

Our job is not to collude with circumstance, but to maintain high expectations, understanding that if we let them off, we let them down. We must avoid deficit discourse, assumptions of innate talent and loose language that reinforces, often unintentionally, disadvantage. When we see delayed attainment, we acknowledge that nothing fundamental can stop attainment mobility or the closing of gaps, except, of course, if we fail to advantage those presently experiencing disadvantage.  

Give Status (Culture)

“It is difficult for us to realise how much information is socially transmitted, because the amount is staggering and the process is largely transparent.” (Pascal Boyer, 2018)

As individuals, we have an un-ending well of status to give to colleagues and to children. The opportunity to give status is a fundamental human gift to others. To give status is to be interested in every child, who they are, what they are doing, smiling, acknowledging, encouraging, noticing, being present. It costs us nothing, is a measure of our shared values and plays out in every interaction.

“…feeling deprived of status is a major source of anxiety and depression. When life is a game we’re losing, we hurt. …status is a resource as real as oxygen or water. When we lose it, we break.” (Will Storr, 2021)

Given that we measure our status against those with whom we spend time, our classrooms are crucibles of comparative status. Our classroom cultures must level status upwards and not inadvertently reinforce disadvantage or status based on early advantage and current attainment.

“We can’t help leaking expectations, through our gazes, our body language and our voices. My expectations about you define my attitude towards you.” (Rutger Bregman)

Build belonging, distribute esteem (Culture)

It may not appear obvious, but schools are the most trusted, resourced and the most able to tackle inequality and to combat the growing darkness in our communities. Our superpower is education and that is where we can shine the light and support children to find colour, to belong.

“To feel a sense of belonging is to feel accepted, to feel seen and to feel included by a group of people… to not feel belonging is to experience the precarious and insecure sense of an outsider.” (Owen Eastwood, 2021)

How then, do we create belonging in our language, values, artefacts, behaviours, routines in schools to say to all children that they belong. To what extent do we see the development of culture in schools as a curriculum to be taught and enacted, not left to social forces? This seeks to create an empowering and ordered culture to enable psychological safety, creating the climate to tackle disadvantage.

The development of shared language and lexicon is a purposeful activity that understands that some words, phrases and attitudes reduce status and belonging (often unconsciously). We must select, develop and reinforce an empowering language to enable individuals to belong, feel safe and be able to prioritise learning.

In this decade, with the inevitable challenges, our duty of care to the children we educate is to build their self-esteem, so that children have purpose, dignity and feel the glow of accomplishment. A marker of our success will be the extent to which we are able to distribute and redistribute esteem.

“…we need a redistribution of esteem… to live lives of decency and dignity, winning social esteem. …we can travel the road to 2045 with purpose, dignity and accomplishment.” (Peter Hennessy, 2022)

In the dark there is light (Team)

“How a society treats its most vulnerable is always the measure of its humanity.” (Matthew Rycroft)

Whilst it is darker and ever gloomier, we should remain optimistic and empowered. Those who are presently disadvantaged depend on us, we are their greatest hope, their best second chance. We do, however, need to actively choose to care, to privilege and to apply equity through education. To measure what matters, drive up attendance, focus on the main things, invest in curriculum, teaching, vocabulary, oracy, culture. To have high expectations, to give status, create belonging and systematically build esteem.

This is our duty of care, it is what matters, it is why you are here. Go forth, build a coalition, a movement within your schools, across schools and across Trusts, for communities, within our regions. A movement that seeks to bring light to those who need it, to support children who are fading, to build the colour back in and to make sure every child has a fair chance, so we can say, “yes, you DO belong. We all belong here.”  

“We are bound by a sense of shared belonging and collective responsibility; about strong local communities, active citizens and the devolution of responsibility. …ensuring that everyone has a fair chance to make the most of their capacities and their lives.” (Jonathan Sacks, 2020)

Dan Nicholls | October 2022

Thinking and content heavily influenced by colleagues within Cabot Learning Federation

What if we are the hope and we fail?

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As educationalists, we are the greatest hope and the biggest resource that children and their families have to reverse disadvantage* and give each child the agency to decide their future. However, we are falling short and we need to face the inconvenient truth that we are part of the problem. We must take our opportunity fulfil our obligation to those who trust us and need us most. It is time for us to feel outraged and impassioned by the inequity and asymmetry in our society and, dare we admit it, within our schools. We need to understand and overcome the forces that act explicitly and implicitly to reinforce disadvantage over time; we need to systemically and collectively reconsider what is normal (and acceptable).

“What provokes our outrage depends on what surrounds us – on what we consider normal.” (Cass Sunstein, 2021)

The pandemic has not been felt evenly, it has exposed and entrenched disadvantage and threatens to define and harm a generation. Without greater action and decisive intervention our legacy will reflect that we did not do enough for those that needed us most. To remove doubt, there is no choice, no opt out, if you are in our sector you are complicit, you are already responsible. Together we have the collective capability and expertise to make a difference. Together we must reverse disadvantage and close the 19.9 month gap that opens by age 16 in the South West (10.5 months at the end of Primary) so that those that have the least are supported to take what is offered…

“One measure of poverty is how little you have. Another is how difficult you find it to take advantage of what others try to give you.” (Michael Lewis, 2021)

*throughout this piece there are generalisations that place children as either advantaged or disadvantaged, the reality is far more complex, there is a full range of advantage and disadvantage (and attainment) and not all advantaged are advantaged and not all disadvantaged are disadvantaged. This simplification does not deny the need to consider all children as individuals.

I am more than a number

“Don’t call me disadvantaged, I’m Alice, and to clarify I may be presently experiencing disadvantage or have a legacy of disadvantage, but it has not, does not and will not define me. I am Alice, I don’t need a label I need equity… to be offered the supported opportunity and high expectations that allow me to take control of my life; to have the agency to choose what I do, where I go, with whom, when…. I do not need you to collude with me, or pity me, I need you to notice me, know me, to teach me, to support me to step forward, not backward. I need you to give me what I need (deserve)… and one more thing, I may appear less ambitious than others, I’m not, but I have experienced less opportunity and this can erode what I believe is possible.”

As educators we need to fully understand those we educate, not on the surface, but as humans who are finding their way in our world. Reversing disadvantage is a deeply personal challenge and mission for us all. Not least because when we know something about someone it becomes personal. Only action born out of knowing individual children, where it is everyone’s business and privileged in everything we do, will we have the chance to support all children who are presently or previously experiencing disadvantage; that is what Alice and the 144,310 individuals who are presently experiencing disadvantaged in the South West (19.9%) need from us.

Privileging disadvantage in everything that we do

How do we mobilise and organise our effort, through everyone, for every child; delivering the equity that all children deserve? By privileging disadvantaged learners in everything we do, by applying the lens of disadvantage and understanding what it is to be presently or previously disadvantaged we will turn the dial and make the difference that we came into education to achieve. We can do this by optimising the talent that exists across our region…

“We need a social contract that is about pooling and sharing more risks with each other to reduce the worries we all face while optimising the use of talent across our sector and enabling individuals to contribute as much as they can. It also means caring about the well-being not just of our own children, but of others’ too, since they will all occupy the same world in future.” (Minouche Shafik, 2020)

Through the lens of disadvantage | the sobering truth of the reality of disadvantage

“How a society treats its most vulnerable is always the measure of its humanity.” (Matthew Rycroft)

Once you apply the disadvantage lens and seek to see through their eyes all provision and teaching is thrown into a different light; a sobering light, one that reflects the built in tilt towards advantaged children. What if we considered performance and the quality of provision only in terms of the attendance, attainment and progress of disadvantaged learners (remembering that it is attainment that trumps progress for unlocking future opportunity for disadvantaged learners)?

When we apply the lens of disadvantage we may well see the wood for the trees. This is something as educators and as a system we are not strong at; we see averages, big cohort numbers, we hide groups in plain sight and amalgamate – when what we need to do is seek to understand. When we apply our disadvantage lens we might actually be measuring the true efficacy and impact of our provision. Only strong provision reaches through to disadvantaged learners and closes gaps; it is a strong litmus test for effectiveness.

Even over…

What if we committed to disadvantage even over… other groups, not that other groups are not important, but even over? Without this focus any push to shift provision, improve teaching and tackle the omnipresent forces that widen the gap between the have and have nots, will fail. If we are to deliver any sense of equity through education, then we must be unswerving; we may need to strive for something else, something much harder to achieve, something that is not predetermined through previous opportunity and experience.

“This is Vanity Fair a world where everyone is striving for what is not worth having.”

Accumulated advantage versus accumulated disadvantage over time

To understand what it is to be disadvantaged (previously or presently) we need to understand the forces within society, culture and within our schools that accumulate advantage and disadvantage over time. To do this we need to see pupils and students as the outcome of everything they have interacted with; we tell stories to ourselves about who we are and these are a result of our (positive) interactions, (supported) opportunities and (rich) experiences over time. The result is that only an equitable approach has a chance of offering individual children what they (actually) need.

“…who you are emerges from everything you’ve interacted with: your environment, all of your experiences, your friends, your enemies, your culture, your belief system, your era – all of it.” (David Eagleman, 2020)

How far do you recognise the two journeys below? Disadvantaged journey on the left and an advantaged journey on the right, considering their past and their future…

How do we shift the narrative our children tell themselves through life (a life within which we are one of the (important) narrators)? Understanding that we need to focus as much on the future for disadvantaged learners and giving them what they need to thrive as well as addressing their key gaps from their lack of opportunity and support in the past.

70 plays 30

What if, in general terms, advantaged children already carry much of what they need into our schools? An advantage that allows them to make sense of even weak provision. What if…

  • Advantaged children bring 70% of what they need through the school gates?
  • Those previously or presently experiencing disadvantage may only bring 30% of what they need?

If this is true then schools and provision should be evaluated on their ability to support those that bring the least from outside and to not over-evaluate or exaggerate our impact on advantaged children. After all the quality of teaching matters much more to a disadvantaged child than an advantaged child, who can make sense of poor provision…

Hunt don’t Fish

To fish is to cast out and seek any fish; to hunt is to purposefully track and find a specific quarry. To achieve equity through education we need to hunt not fish. Those presently or previously experiencing disadvantage do not need equality where we hope class-wide teaching or cohort opportunity will level-up and provide the equity needed; it will not. To hunt is to understand the needs of each child, to have high expectations and be tenacious about ensuring disadvantaged learners are making more progress so that their attainment has a chance of making a difference; one that opens doors (good doors) in their future.

Equity through Education

What is clear is that we should seek equity over equality to support disadvantaged learners to have the (supported) opportunity and (leveraging) experiences that will allow them to feel success. How far do we actually give what every disadvantaged child needs?

“Fair doesn’t mean giving every child the same thing, it means giving every child what they need.” (Rick Lavoie)

Attainment mobility

“Enabling children to attain higher than would be expected based on their starting points.”

Attainment Mobility is the reversing of delayed attainment, linguistic under-privilege and lack of early opportunity, so that children self select (not self de-select) and accumulate advantage (not disadvantage) through life.

Having the highest of expectations of all pupils, irrespective of background. Remembering that disadvantaged pupils don’t lack talent or ability, but can lack opportunity and support over time. Prior attainment should not set limits on our ambitions for all pupils.

…And it is attainment that matters

To be clear, progress may well not be enough; it is attainment that counts, it is attainment that opens doors and provides the future opportunity and the empowerment and agency to make decisions.

Have unswerving expectations – it is the background music of advantaged children

What stands out in an advantaged upbringing is the level of expectation from birth. It is an upbringing that is full of rules, routines, structure, boundaries, etiquette, expectation and self-fulfilling achievement. It permeates language, attitudes and mindset. It establishes the locus of control to be with the child and not the environment, it gives the power of control to each child to be the commander of their destiny; it is an advantage that is demanding, but liberating.

Our disadvantaged children need us to be unswerving in our expectations of what they can do, they do not need us to collude and lower our expectations.

Keep it simple | What matters is Great Teaching and (really) Knowing each child

  • How far do we focus on the main thing being the main thing for accumulating advantage: teaching well? How far is this focused on:
    • what matters most, having high expectations of what all learners can do. Provokes interest and curiosity by making learning compelling and important.
    • direct instruction, explanation, modelling; progression of key organising concepts and ideas brought alive by judicious selection of compelling knowledge. In particular building strong narratives and schema that create the structure for knowledge and understanding that many advantaged children bring to the school.
    • deliberate practice, building success on meaningful and challenging tasks. Enabling children to achieve meaningful work that allows them to see themselves in a new light, forever changed.
    • diagnostic assessment, high quality feedback: rapid, high quality feedback loops.
    • Literacy and Language: the cornerstones of unlocking disadvantage.

Future thinking | less about what has been missed, more about what could be…

How far do we consider the future and what individuals need to thrive and make the most of the opportunities that present themselves within the enigmatic variation of life (Michael Blastland, 2020)? Whilst academic qualifications act as a passport through future doorways, what else allows individuals to thrive? What is the balance of competence and character that supports progression? What secures a good quality of life? To be able to make their own choices? To be able to influence the world around them (directly and distantly)? How do we best support disadvantaged individuals to be competitive… going forward in their future?

Essentially accumulating advantage for disadvantaged children (and in specific areas), to create character and competence so that their, “Childhood is not a destiny.” (Robert Sampson)

“… lives are lived forwards but can only be understood backwards. Though life is shaped by various forces, as we know, it is also shaped by living, by particular experience as it unfolds.” (Michael Blastland, 2019)

It is not ability or talent, it is the combination of opportunity, support and experiences over time that put advantaged ahead

Creating the opportunity to bring innate talent to the surface for all individuals. Creating the opportunity for individuals to be inspired by, experience and persist long enough with something so that they become better than average; triggering something in their self identity that allows them to continue to develop confidence and competence in something over time that then in hindsight appears to be talent.

What we see as talent is almost always the product of practice (deliberate) over time. How then do we support disadvantage to develop competence that might in the future be deemed to be a talent?

Our use of language around this is really important; and our reference to talent and ability is ubiquitous. We should take all reference to natural talent, x factor, ability etc. and talk about present level of attainment; so our language does not limit learners and we do not infer attainment as pre-determined.

“It is difficult for us to realise how much information is socially transmitted. because the amount is staggering and the process is largely transparent.” (Pascal Boyer, 2018)

“Don’t give me abstract, disconnected facts/knowledge to recall over time | build schema, the framework for me to understand.”

“The importance of knowledge is not in question, but knowledge alone is not enough.” (Mick Waters)

We need to tread carefully around knowledge/retrieval and ensure that this is also about understanding/explanation, and not in that order. We need teaching to be about concepts, threads, big ideas, narrative that has a much greater chance of developing and deepening schema so that learning is much more about being memorable, structured and connected. So that knowledge is judiciously selected to deepen understanding beyond memory and abstract recall. This is particularly important for disadvantaged who will make no sense of abstract compilation of knowledge – they need the narrative and schema that advantaged learners have accumulated through time as part of their enhanced access to cultural capital.

“…stories perform a fundamental cognitive function: they are the means by which the emotional brain makes sense of the information collected by the rational brain… beliefs about (information) are held entirely in the form of stories. When we encounter a complex issue and try to understand it, what we look for is not consistent and reliable facts, but a consistent and comprehensible story.” (from Out of the Wreckage, George Monbiot, 2017)

“Collecting a teacher’s knowledge may help us solve the challenges of the day, but understanding how a teacher thinks can help us navigate the challenges of a lifetime. Ultimately education is more than the information we accumulate in our heads.” (Adam Grant, 2021)

Beware strategies that make us feel good | the seating plan fallacy

When seeking to reverse disadvantage, as a sector, we are prone to gimmicks and good intentions that can do the reverse of what we intend. For example, labels are dangerous, they can confer, define and condemn. Labels give us excuses, they deepen stereotypes and generalisations and worse they give us reasons to normalise disadvantage or excuse (explain) lower attainment.

“…don’t label me, place me in a seat, or put a dot or code next to my face on an A4 page and do nothing different. You are conferring disadvantage on me; it is delayed attainment not ability and I need you to really know me and know what I need.”

If we are to use tools like seating plans, then it must move to direct action or it has the danger of widening not closing the gap.

What if this is the challenge of our time, and we fail?

We have the capability, the expertise and shared understanding to do better by the families and children that need us most. We are not yet meeting this challenge, but we can. We also have the opportunity and obligation to do so. It has never been more challenging to grow up in our world and our record in the South West is not yet one we can be proud of.

How then, do we privilege those presently and previously experiencing disadvantage – let us open that debate and move to action. Apply the disadvantaged lens and ask searching questions about what we should value and how we must act. Now is the time to use the expertise and experience across our region to make a discernible difference.

This piece follows on from two previous pieces: Part Two | urgent action required, addressing disadvantage and Urgent Action Required | addressing disadvantage

October 2021 | Dan Nicholls

Part Two | urgent action required, addressing disadvantage

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As educationalists we still have an urgent, deeper problem; one that may already be irreversibly entrenched by a pandemic whose impact has not been felt evenly. It is more important than ever for us to work together to deliberately and systematically address deep-seated inequality and act now to slow the growing gulf between advantaged and disadvantaged children; so that children are not permanently defined by the pandemic, because they have the tools to choose what they become…

To give the power of choice is deeply embedded in our values as educators, but we will require the bravery to step into the light of the new normal and be the change that is needed, if only we’re brave enough to be it…

“When day comes, we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.” (Amanda Gorman, 2021)

Ten months after writing Urgent Action Required | addressing disadvantage we find ourselves still in the midst of a Pandemic, one which has touched our lives. The sad truth is that the stark asymmetry of society, education and opportunity, embarrassingly revealed by the pandemic, still dominates, condemns and limits the lives of disadvantaged children. It is very hard to under-play the steepness of the challenge that we as educators face.

“We must have a bold and comprehensive plan … a long-term strategy, fully funded, planned by educationalists with cross party consensus, that looks forward for the next five years to support those most impacted by COVID-19 over their educational lifetime.” (Sammy Wright, Social Mobility Commissioner, 2021)

There is increasing hope as we extricate ourselves from the pandemic, but the sickening reality remains, the impact of the pandemic and the deep economic and social cost will burden communities and individuals into the middle of this century. This piece of writing, however, is born out of optimism not pessimism, hope not futility. It offers a framework for understanding how we can support all individual disadvantaged children to thrive in our increasingly asymmetric society and acceleratingly complex future.

Accumulating disadvantage, the past, present and future | the asymmetry of life

“…what future?” (Enola Holmes) “There are two paths that you can take Enola, yours or the path others choose for you…” (Eudoria Holmes) “Our future is up to us!” (Enola Holmes, Film, 2020)

Accumulating disadvantage and advantage is founded in early life and is perpetuated through education to fundamentally influence and determine the opportunities that are available through adulthood. This accumulation cements and calcifies the asymmetries that are hard wired into our society and education system. The interaction and compounding impact of the factors that accumulate disadvantage and advantage are detailed below: (the table contrasts key factors that influence disadvantaged and advantaged children in the past and into their future)

Accumulating advantaged and disadvantage in the past and future: self-perpetuating and reinforcing

“…with each new thing you learn, the better you’re able to absorb the next related fact.” (David Eagleman, 2020)

Life as a series of opportunities | those that we take and those we miss

Between life and death there are opportunities that we play going forwards through childhood and adulthood. For some this is a a joyous stroll through a land full of possibility for others it is a world that happens to them, a life that limits their opportunity to try another life…

“Between life and death there is a library,” she said. “And within that library, the shelves go on for ever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices. Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?” (Matt Haig, The Midnight Library, 2020)

Considering life as a one way journey along routes punctuated by opportunities helps our understanding of disadvantage by pushing us to look forward and not just backwards to support disadvantaged children.

“…you possess only a single life, what you devote yourself to (or the experiences you have) send you down a particular roads, while the other paths will forever remain untrodden by you.” (David Eagleman, 2020)

Early experience and opportunity lay the ground (load the deck, build the foundation) for the future. Some individuals accumulate knowledge, understanding, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-belief, a set of tools that open doors and routes in their future (not initially foreseeable); the foundation for self-agency; picking and choosing and playing with opportunities as they present themselves.

The reverse is also true, if we consider life as a set of opportunities, disadvantaged children and individuals have had fewer opportunities in the past, now and in their future. Disadvantaged are, therefore, more likely to…

  • … have fewer opportunities (recognised or not) now and in the future, those that appear and those that are self-created.
  • … are far less likely to step forward when opportunities present; more likely to self-de-select themselves and step back.
  • … and have fewer tools to use, previous experiences or self-belief to exploit each opportunity. 

Tackling our disadvantaged problem forwards (as well as backwards)

We remain very uncomfortable with the truth that…. however effective we believe our present education system is, it fails, year after year to address the disadvantaged gap; there is very limited evidence of attainment mobility in our schools; disadvantaged children at age 16 are 18.1 months behind their more affluent peers, and worse still “…we could be at a turning point .. we could soon enter a period where the gap starts to widen.” (EPI, 2019)

Whilst we need to assess the deficits in learning of disadvantaged children by looking back at what is missed or insecure (literacy, language being key levers), we should also look forward into their future and consider how we can load their dice and increase their (life) chances. Increasing the child’s chance of recognising, creating, stepping into opportunities in their future with a set of personal and academic tools and keys that will exploit the opportunities that life throws up.

How far do we consider the future and the specific tools that individuals need to thrive and make the most of opportunities that present themselves within the enigmatic variation of life (Michael Blastland, 2020)? Whilst academic qualifications act as a passport through future doorways, what else allows individuals to thrive? What is the balance of competence and character that supports progression? What secures a good quality of life? To be able to make their own choices? To be able to influence the world around them (directly and distantly)? How do we best support disadvantaged to be competitive?

A personalised approach that may also consider how best we build specialisms, areas of competence to accumulate advantage so that they are competitive with their more advantaged peers may prove a useful enablers for individuals. Essentially accumulating advantage for disadvantaged children (and in specific areas), to create character and competence so that their, “Childhood is not a destiny.” (Robert Sampson)

“… lives are lived forwards but can only be understood backwards. Though life is shaped by various forces, as we know, it is also shaped by living, by particular experience as it unfolds.” (Michael Blastland, 2019)

Present level of attainment, delayed attainment and attainment mobility

We must work harder to recognise a child’s present level of attainment as just that the present level of attainment. This understanding of attainment removes assumptions, language (either conscious or unconscious) that attainment or ability is fixed. It usefully opens the door to discussions about delayed attainment (particularly pertinent now) and to attainment mobility the ability for children to progress from low to high attaining compared to peers (something that education does not achieve well). In this sense learning is a way of creating abilities; how far can we support disadvantaged to create their own potential...

“Learning now becomes a new way of creating abilities rather than bringing people to the point where they can take advantage of their innate ones … People are not born with fixed reserves of potential; instead potential is an expandable vessel, shaped by the various things we do throughout our lives. Learning isn’t a way of reaching one’s potential but rather a way of developing it. We can create our own potential.” (Anders Eriksson)

… it is also helpful not to be fooled into believing disadvantaged children are less ambitious and aspirational. This maybe how they present, but often the opposite is true, not having the means and being deeply influenced by our lived experience may tell a different story.

Talent identified in hindsight as the consequence of effort and practice over time

Creating the opportunity to bring innate talent to the surface for all individuals. Creating the opportunity for individuals to be inspired by, experience and persist long enough with something so that they become better than average; triggering something in their self identity that allows them to continue to develop confidence and competence in something over time that then in hindsight appears to be talent.

What we see as talent is almost always the product of practice (deliberate) over time. How then do we support disadvantage to develop competence that might in the future be deemed to be a talent?

Life chances turn on small things, moments and chance | an opportunity to sow seeds and load the dice for the future

“..we are each made up of numerous possibilities.. “We discover the possibilities by doing, by trying new activities, building new networks, finding new role models.” “We learn who we are in practice, not in theory.” (Herminia Ibarra, quoted by David Epstein, 2019)

The thing with disadvantage is that regardless of the present level of disadvantage we can accumulate advantage over time, at anytime, it is not something that starts when disadvantage is removed and it may well turn on small things as well as complex things, in seconds or years. How do we support children to fall helplessly in love with their future passion, perhaps in brief powerful encounters?

“Beneath every big talent lies an ignition story – the famously potent moment when a young person falls helplessly in love with their future passion. … Talent begins with brief powerful encounters that spark motivation (ignition) by linking your identity to a high performing person or group (or self image). This is called ignition, and it consists of a tiny, world shifting thought lighting up your unconscious mind: I could be them (or do that, or achieve that)” (Dan Coyle)

The path we take through life is influenced in complex ways as a journey of loaded chance and opportunity. How accessible the opportunities are depends on the level of advantage or disadvantage. The way that opportunities playout over a lifetime, in often unpredictable ways, means that increasing the future chances of success and accumulating advantage can arise in even the smallest conversation, some praise, meeting them there, asking how things went, building confidence, knowledge and understanding all have the ability to build a can-do identity and increase agency that unlocks opportunities. As educators we cannot see the future, but we can increase the chances of disadvantaged by creating a broader toolbox for these future opportunities and experimentation:

“… mental meandering and personal experimentation are sources of power, and head starts are overrated.” (David Epstein , 2019)

We are all responsible, there is no opt out | It is everyone’s problem

As educators we have significant influence on all individuals that we interact with; we leak our expectations and attitudes. Some of these will be inconsequential, but others may be life changing.

“Every day, we make each other smarter or stupider, stronger or weaker, faster or slower. We can’t help leaking expectations, through our gazes, our body language and our voices. My expectations about you define my attitude towards you.” (Rutger Bregman, 2020)

The good and the bad news is that every interaction along life’s journey has an impact on us and informs our sense of self and our self identity. The good is that everyday there are multiple ways to influence those around us. The impact can be fundamental and is likely to bear little relation to the amount of time or investment it takes. Because we live life forwards there is no telling the impact the educators have on children on their journey through childhood into adulthood. Applying this underlines the importance of culture, the importance that it is everyone’s job, that we should not partition our disadvantaged work into time-limited strategies – it is an all the time thing. And we are all responsible.

“…who you are emerges from everything you’ve interacted with: your environment, all of your experiences, your friends, your enemies, your culture, your belief system, your era – all of it.” (David Eagleman, 2020)

The bad is that everyday in every interaction between educator and child we will consciously or unconsciously do one (or a mix) of the following. Underlining the complexity of addressing disadvantage we need to consider how far our culture, curriculum, teaching, culture, rules, routines, language, our assumptions, bias – condemns, confers, colludes, mitigates, or removes disadvantage?

  • Condemn: to assume fixed attainment and capability making disadvantage the defining feature of an individual. “That child’s disadvantage is permanent.”
  • Confer: to give someone the identity of disadvantaged. Applying all of the damaging stereotypes and generalities of disadvantage. “Yes, you are disadvantaged”
  • Collude: to act together in order to deceive through agreeing the extent and on going impact of disadvantage. “Yes, life is difficult because you are disadvantaged”
  • Mitigate: to support and reduce the impact of disadvantage “No, you have agency over what you do and where you go”
  • Remove: to undo disadvantage by accumulating advantage “This does not define you or pre-determine your future.” (could have been ‘reverse‘, but this does not fit with choices made going forward, and may inadvertently suggest unpicking the past, rather than adding to a character and competence toolbox that takes advantage of opportunities in the future, further this might be better termed as ‘adding advantage or accumulating advantage‘

Educators are not consciously the creators of disadvantage, but we do make choices, minute by minute, that can limit the impact of disadvantage on a child’s future, so that collectively, consciously, together, we enable our disadvantaged children to write their own stories, to grasp, shape and wrestle with their own future. Giving them access to the game and the rules and the tactics and the confidence and self-identity to have agency.

“It was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. You have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in the future … believing the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart …and that will make all the difference.” (Steve Jobs)

Keeping the main thing the main thing | Teaching as the key lever for accumulating advantage

One of the biggest levers for accumulating advantage for disadvantaged is to invest deeply in supporting and developing professionals to teach well; professional development that focuses on:

  • the key spine of what matters most in the curriculum, delivered with purpose and passion; making it unavoidable and compelling. Build curiosity and questioning in all children to secure their ability to make decisions, take chances and have agency now and in the future.
  • direct instruction, explanation, modelling. Investing deeply in explanation so that we scaffold understanding, based on a progression of key organising concepts and ideas brought alive by judicious selection of the most relevant and compelling knowledge. Building schema that provides the foundation and touch points that will come easier to advantaged children.
  • deliberate practice. To build confidence and success on meaningful and challenging tasks.
  • diagnostic assessment, high quality feedback. The biggest advantage that advantaged children have had and have are rapid, high quality feedback loops. From a young age advantaged children are corrected and encouraged; this matures into a self-directed search for feedback as a positive mechanism for growth and improvement. For disadvantaged it can be something that exposes, humiliates or offers confirmation that the world happens to them. Feedback has the potential to be transformational and comes in all forms, a glance, a smile, a comment, conversation, caring, valuing the person, simply repeating what has been said, questioning, pausing, motivating, (written feedback), comparison, modelling… again revealing the importance of human connection
  • Literacy and Language: the cornerstones of unlocking disadvantage. All teachers and wider colleagues have a role in both literacy (all aspects) and language (including vocabulary). Particular focus on oracy is leveraging for disadvantaged; again this is precisely what happens in the homes of the advantaged from an early age.

Teaching that has a strong narrative that is conceptually strong, relevant and feels important so that learning is irresistible supports the likelihood that we will accumulate advantage in disadvantaged students. Particularly where we are able to cumulatively support and expect individuals to complete meaningful and challenging work; building self-belief, self esteem and igniting the curiosity present in us all.

“This change-only-when-relevant feature reminds us that the brain is not simply a blank slate upon which the world scrawls all its stories. .. Experiences turn into memories when they are germane (to our lives).” (David Eagleman, 2020)

Teachers who, “foster rethinking cycles by instilling intellectual humility, disseminating doubt and cultivating curiosity,” (Adam Grant, 2021) are more likely to equip students for their future; to know what to do when they do not know what to do.

“Collecting a teacher’s knowledge may help us solve the challenges of the day, but understanding how a teacher thinks can help us navigate the challenges of a lifetime. Ultimately education is more than the information we accumulate in our heads.” (Adam Grant, 2021)

What if our connection with Education is elasticated to the point of failure?

In middle and long distance races athletes describe the rubber band that exists between themselves and the runner(s) in front. Once this extends too far there is a point of no return, the band snaps and it is impossible to catch-up.

Sadly this may also be true for disadvantaged children over time (and accelerated during the pandemic). There is a point when disadvantaged children increasingly self-deselect themselves from engaging, attending and trying; they become disenfranchised from education. The elastic snapping and the checking-out of education may sadly be the case for an eye-wateringly high number of disadvantaged children. Our challenge, for these individuals, will not be simply to close gaps, but to prove to those who are no longer in the game that education, itself, is worthwhile.

What you have (or have not) in your locker counts (you in or counts you out)

When advantaged children get good at something they stack their internal locker with evidence of success (their sense of identity or self). Numerous affirmations build up in their locker to reaffirm their ability and alter, enhance their self belief and agency. The number of affirmations and the amount of evidence is not compromised by odd failures or negative comments; their sense of self (worth) is unwounded and their agency undiminished.

The reinforced, affirmation and evidence rich locker of advantaged individuals

For disadvantage, their lived experience can leave their locker for a range of aspects of their life sparse. This leads to a propensity to not try again and risk further weakening the locker that may lower self-agency and give a suffocating sense that the world happens to them. The downward spiral of which leads to on-going self de-selection from trying, risking failure, (that their locker will not resist). New opportunities are not seen as such (in fact the opposite) and the disadvantaged step back, not forward, further accumulating disadvantage.

The disproportionate impact of achieving meaningful and challenging work

Disadvantaged individuals (and all children) need to have the opportunity to wrestle with and succeed at meaningful and challenging work. This speaks directly to their identity as a learner. It gives a new sense of achievement, alters the self identity, contributes to their self-belief locker, accumulates advantage, loads the dice for the future, decreases the likelihood of self de-selection and strengthens agency. Bit by bit the more we, as educators, build these opportunities the more we mitigate disadvantage and accumulate advantage.

“Once a student sees that he or she is capable of excellence, that student is never quite the same. There is a new self-image, a new notion of possibility. There is an appetite for excellence.” (Ron Berger)

For a disadvantaged strategy, look within as much as out for answers, think in years not terms, reject initiatives, think systemic change, build culture not working groups

The scale of our disadvantaged problem is too big for short term strategy, initiative and short term interventions, it requires something deeper and systemic; our approach needs to become what we do (without trying), because it is in the culture, in the approach, owned by all. So…

  • … do look outside for inspiration, but build your approach on what you learn about disadvantage in your context; the answers and approach lie within you and your community; strategies do not travel well. Thinking deeply about disadvantage and context and ownership with strong execution matters.
  • … do not seek initiatives and short term interventions. Systemic change is required that is irreversible (not least because disadvantage holds on to individuals over time).
  • … plan to address disadvantage in the long term, think 3 to 5 to 10 years in terms of timeline. Resist the one year plan punctuated by short term interventions.
  • … do not think of disadvantage as one homogenous group; this issue is only understood by fully understanding each individual disadvantaged child and how best to accumulate advantage for them.
  • … do not just fixate on the past and gaps that exist, also consider the future for disadvantaged students, what do they need to thrive?
  • … do invest in teaching (the every lesson, everyday lever) and culture to accumulate advantage through the lens of competence and character (particularly self-belief and self-esteem) to give self-agency.

“Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities.” (Malcolm Gladwell)

This is personal | the need for human to human contact | post-pandemic rocket fuel

Children typically think in the now. Emphasising human contact and quality interaction between and adult and learner in the magical places we call schools may well be the best recovery from the pandemic. Dwelling and colluding on the impact may not serve children well; keeping the Main Event, every lesson, everyday as the focus will likely best serve disadvantaged children.

“It is difficult for us to realise how much information is socially transmitted. because the amount is staggering and the process is largely transparent.” (Pascal Boyer, 2018)

Human connection is perhaps the most important contributor to accumulating advantage; it is perhaps the key ingredient in early advantage before the age of 4. The pandemic significantly reduced socialisation and human connection; reducing the staggering amount of information that is socially transmitted. We all bear this responsibility, that young people watch, imitate and learn from us and that this shapes them over time. This human connection may be the biggest loss during the pandemic, but may well prove our greatest super power in the post pandemic.

“We have to see to be able to do. … You play a role in passing on cultural norms and nuances. …people who we connect with, who we trust and who we are exposed to. These are the three fundamental factors that underpin who we learn from or imitate … shaping us at each and every moment of our lives.” (Fiona Murden, 2020)

Seeking equity | giving disadvantaged what they need

“Fair doesn’t mean giving every child the same thing, it means giving every child what they need.” (Rick Lavoie)

We should not consider disadvantaged as a single homogenous group; considering them as a group has significant negative consequences and troublesome stereotypes that will mis-serve disadvantaged children. We must maintain the view that disadvantaged children are individuals and as such we should not confer or label as disadvantage, but understand each child and give them what they need; seek equity give individuals what they need.

But what about the post-pandemic? | gifts for disadvantage from the pandemic?

  • The advancement of and use of technology to support learning has the opportunity to supplement the main event (every lesson, everyday) to support learning and to deepen learning. There is also significant opportunity to democratise learning and increase accessibility to teaching and learning 24/7. Securing accessibility to technology needs to remain a key priority post pandemic.
  • Starker understanding of the role of assessment in leaning and the need for feedback to support progress; the significantly weakened or limited in distance learning.
  • Disadvantaged individuals are likely to have weakened their present level of attainment relative to more affluent, advantaged peers. We should avoid demoting disadvantaged down set or to allow the new attainment level to limit our expectation of them. Before our situational blindness kicks in and the new level becomes defining; we need to seek equity alongside teaching the Main Event (every lesson, everyday)
  • We need to understand the impact of the pandemic on the self-identity/self-esteem locker of each child. Actively encourage and secure early success on meaningful and challenging work; building self-esteem, filling their lockers and ensuring they increasingly step forward, not back.
  • The deeper connections with family that have developed through the pandemic provide a significant opportunity to support disadvantaged children: whilst children spend c.950 hours in classroom and well over c.1200 hours in school each year, accounting for sleeping, they spend closer to 4000 hours per year with parents and carers.

The So What? | How far are we meeting the following challenges?

The following is offered as a set of challenging questions for us to consider how we are accumulating advantage for individual disadvantaged children, so that they feel and are more successful now and in adulthood; how best do we gift each child with the self-agency that allow them to make choices, seize opportunities and thrive in life.

  1. How far do we know, at an individual level, the nature of disadvantage in our context: how it accumulates over time to limit opportunity generally and specifically in our community?
  2. How far are we able to recognise “present level of attainment” and “delayed attainment” so that we do not inadvertently assume fixed ability and reduce attainment mobility?
  3. How far is addressing our disadvantaged problem everyone’s business? Understanding that we are all responsible and leak our expectations all of the time.
    • do we condemn, confer, collude, mitigate or remove disadvantage?
    • do we focus on our language, actual and body language?
  4. How far do we believe and invest in human connection as the key to accumulating advantage. The lack of human connection may have done the most damage in the pandemic, by contrast it is likely to be our superpower to influence and gift choice to our disadvantaged children in the post-pandemic.
  5. How far do we know that this needs to be an investment over the longer term, aimed at system change (teaching and culture). Initiatives and intervention are poor substitutes for systemic, irreversible change that influences how we educate over time to accumulate advantage?
  6. How far do we focus on the main thing as the main thing for accumulating advantage: teaching well? How far is this focused on:
    • what matters most, building curiosity and questioning in all children,
    • direct instruction, explanation, modelling; progression of key organising concepts and ideas brought alive by judicious selection of compelling knowledge.
    • deliberate practice, building success on meaningful and challenging tasks.
    • diagnostic assessment, high quality feedback: rapid, high quality feedback loops.
    • Literacy and Language: the cornerstones of unlocking disadvantage.
  7. How far are we looking not to just to fill the past gaps for disadvantaged, but equally seek to load the dice for disadvantaged children by looking into the future and equipping them with the tools required to recognise and step forward for opportunities with competence and character that allow them to thrive and influence their world (building self agency)?
  8. How well do we prepare disadvantaged students to:
    • recognise and create opportunities for themselves? (including being curious and asking question)
    • have the agency to step forward for opportunities?
    • have the tools to be able to exploit their opportunities?
  9. How far have we really considered what it is that allows individuals to thrive now and in the future? How far does the present education system set individuals up for success? How do we tip the balance, load the dice to give disadvantaged access to life and the rules?
  10. How far do we understand that an individual’s self identity and motivation to continue is determined by their sense of self and what they have in the locker? How far do we build in affirmations and evidence of success for children to actively build this confidence?
  11. How far are we exploiting the opportunities afforded by our deeper connection with families and communities and our use of technology to democratise learning?
  12. How far would addressing the above make everything else in education either less important or not required?

We should remain optimistic and hopeful for the future; we have remarkable educators in all areas of our sector; with the right focus we can help all children to make something of their lives in a future that is unlikely to be dull.

“Our task is to educate their whole being so they can face the future. We may not see the future, but they will and our job is to help them make something of it.” (Ken Robinson)

Dr Dan Nicholls

February 2021