The Unequal
Classroom

In Britain today, where you are born can determine what you become. A child’s postcode, their parents’ income, their access to a private tutor — these factors shape their future more powerfully than talent or effort.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, there is a 27 percentage-point GCSE gap between disadvantaged & non-disadvantaged pupils that has not changed in 20 years.

By the time a disadvantaged child turns five, they are already, on average, 4.7 months behind their more affluent peers in developmental milestones — a gap that grows wider with every year of schooling. Unlike in comparable nations, the achievement gap between less advantaged and more advantaged children in England actually widens after the age of eleven.

“Social mobility in the UK remains low, and has barely shifted for decades — despite being a core goal of multiple governments.” The Sutton Trust, 2025

Average disadvantage gap in months at the end of secondary school — at its largest since 2011 at 19.1 months.

Disadvantage is entrenched in the British education system.

Research from the Sutton Trust has shown that pupils from more affluent families are substantially more likely than those from less affluent backgrounds to use private tutoring. Those who receive free school meals are among the least likely to access any form of additional tuition. Privately schooled pupils are more likely to have a tutor than those at state schools. The result is a compounding of advantage at every stage.

The situation worsened dramatically when the government ended the National Tutoring Programme in 2024 — a scheme that had briefly widened access to school-based tutoring during and after the pandemic. In the wake of that decision, 58% of state schools reduced their tutoring offer. For the most disadvantaged pupils, school-based tutoring was often the only option available.

Educational inequality does not simply affect childhood attainment scores. It determines the shape of British professional life for decades to come — who enters the top universities, who enters the elite professions, who leads our institutions, and who makes the laws that govern us all.

Working towards increasing social mobility is an important issue that affects us all and on that we should work towards promoting.

We cannot do this work effectively on our own, so we’d love to hear from you.

Sources & further reading
Sutton Trust — Private Tutoring 2026
Sutton Trust — Elitist Britain 2025
Sutton Trust — Social Mobility & Opportunity (2024)
Sutton Trust — Closing the Attainment Gap (2024)
Sutton Trust — Fair Opportunity for All (2024)

Department for Education — KS2 Attainment 2024/25
Department for Education — KS4 Performance 2024/25
Education Policy Institute — Annual Report 2025
Social Mobility Commission — State of the Nation 2024/25
IFS Deaton Review — Intergenerational Mobility in the UK