THREAD: Key findings of our new @EduPolicyInst Annual Report, based on the latest available data from the National Pupil Database in 2019 and featuring my favourite graphs (1/8)

By the time they sit their GCSEs, disadvantaged pupils are 18 months behind their non-disadvantaged peers. The gap increases throughout the life course, from 5 months in the early years to 9 months in primary school. (2/8)

Recent decades have seen incremental closures in the gap. But our modelling shows that the rate of closure has slowed over the last 10 years. Based on the last 5 years of data, we find that for the first time the gap has stopped closing altogether. (3/8)

This has been driven by worsening outcomes for pupils experiencing high persistence of poverty, being poor for >80% of their time at school. This graph shows that the gap for this group has increased almost every year since 2015, in contrast to the lower persistence groups. (4/8)

The gap varies significantly by GCSE subject. The largest gaps are in Music and PE. Language subjects tend to have smaller gaps. (5/8)

Worryingly, the gap has increased by 77% for pupils from Any Other Black Background and by 68% for Black Caribbean pupils since 2011. For pupils with English as an Additional Language who arrive relatively late into secondary school, the gap has also widened by 11%. (6/8)

For SEND pupils with an Education, Health and Care Plan, the gap is a shocking 41 months at GCSE – and this is unchanged since the SEND reforms in 2014. For SEND pupils without an EHCP, the gap is 21 months, and progress here has also slowed since the reforms. (7/8)

For the first time, we look at the gap for children in care (29 months), children on a child protection plan who have typically experienced abuse and neglect (26 months), and children with a social worker (20 months). There has been little progress in closing these gaps. (8/8)

So, in short, it's a depressing picture. On the eve of the pandemic, educational inequalities were spiralling. Covid will make them worse. Without concerted govt action to tackle this, we risk wiping away decades of progress in closing the gap.