The Education Policy Institute says the new prime minister should target the issue with "laser-like focus".

The gap between how well pupils from better-off backgrounds perform at school compared with their classmates from lower-income households has widened, according to a new report. Despite some improvements in the years since Covid, the Education Policy Institute (EPI) said the disadvantage gap had widened again in England and was still bigger "at every phase" of school than it was before the pandemic. The Department for Education said it was working to close the disadvantage gap by delivering opportunities for every child, including expanding government-funded childcare and extending eligibility for free school meals. The government had previously set itself a target to halve the disadvantage gap by the time the current generation of children finish secondary school. For its measure of who counts as disadvantaged, the EPI looked at the educational outcomes of children who had ever been eligible for free school meals, compared with those who had not. It also categorised its data by gender, ethnicity and whether children had special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The EPI said the overall difference in academic achievement between low-income students and their wealthier peers was now 17% greater for children in early years than it was before Covid. Although gaps at some school stages had begun to close post-pandemic, the report said they were widening again in the early years and at Key Stage 4, when pupils sit their GCSEs.