The lost boys

In MY 20 years as a governor and school inspector in primary and secondary education, I observed the effect of bandwagon initiatives.

Raising the achievement of black boys resulted in extra tuition to the exclusion of attention paid to the needs of black girls and children with special educational needs.

Children who do not speak English as their first language are given help by teaching support staff, often using Pupil Premium funding, which was designed to help poor, able pupils.

a focus on community cohesion meant inspectors had to mark down successful schools in a mainly white, rural setting if they did not engage with multi- ethnic city schools, no matter how far away.

While raising the achievement of particular focus groups, these initiatives ignored poor, white children, with the result that boys in particular have been consistently behind their peers for years.

since they are the ones who suffered most from lack of access to laptops, tablets and wifi during the pandemic, they have fallen even further behind.

White boys are the lowest achieving group in British schools, closely followed by white girls, which is a national disgrace. all children should feel privileged and achieve as much as they are capable.

It’s all very well to talk about levelling up, but action is needed in the form of a national programme to remedy this. We can’t afford to lose this talent for our future national success and prosperity. CAROL WORTHINGTON,

Abingdon, Oxon. I aM a single parent and my white twin sons grew up in an ‘area of deprivation’. We received benefits and free school meals.

They have just graduated from durham and Cambridge. aspiration overrides deprivation.

CLAIR NIXON, Shildon, Co. Durham.