How closures ‘will undo years of social mobility’

SCHOOL closures could ‘put back years of slow progress on social mobility’ with privately educated pupils almost twice as likely to have online lessons than their state school counterparts.

The ‘prominent’ attainment gap between disadvantaged and more wealthy students is set to widen further amid the coronavirus pandemic, a report has revealed.

Researchers claim this gap could become permanent without ‘a concerted effort’ to help poorer pupils once schools reopen.

The stark warning from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) comes as Government sources refused to confirm whether all pupils will be able to return to school fulltime in September.

Researchers from the IFS and University College London’s Institute of Education surveyed 4,157 parents with children aged between eight and 15 in English private and state schools from April 29 to May 12.

Some 79 per cent of families paying for private education said their child’s secondary school provides online classes.

This compares to just 41 per cent in state secondary schools attended by the most deprived children and only 53 per cent of state secondaries in middle class areas.

More affluent secondary pupils in both sectors spend almost an hour more a day on schoolwork than the least advantaged.

They also have more support at home, have had ‘more active involvement’ from teachers and are ‘much more likely’ to have private tutoring, the report found.