Born to Fail? Improving the literacy and numeracy skills of education’s Left Behind

Summary

This three-year research project generated a series of reports to engage policymakers on this national challenge.

For this project, the ‘Left Behind’ are defined as those teenagers in England who failed to secure a grade 4 or above in both their English Language and Maths GCSEs (with equivalent benchmarks for those in the rest of the UK).

The project used data from the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) which has been tracking around 19,000 young people since they were born in 2000-02. It assessed the backgrounds of those who failed to gain good grades in English language and maths GCSEs at age 16 in 2016-17 and considered their later life outcomes in education and employment. It also examined how the Covid-19 pandemic has differentially impacted on the Left Behind.

The research team also used data from the 1970 British Cohort Study and Next Steps to investigate the experiences of previous generations of children who failed to gain English and maths qualifications.

Using cognitive assessment data collected during childhood and adolescence, researchers tracked the literacy and numeracy trajectories of children from different income backgrounds.

• They documented the family and individual characteristics associated with children who ‘buck the trend’ and achieve well despite their backgrounds. These are the so-called ‘protective characteristics’, and may include:
  parents reading regularly to children
• the home learning environment
• regular bedtime
• parents’ interest and involvement with their children’s education
• types of schooling
• other factors.

These could point to possible policy lessons for children more widely. It also documented the particular risk factors associated with becoming the Left Behind at early childhood.

The project considered several important policy areas, and recommended evidence-informed reforms, citing good policy and practice in other countries where appropriate.

Research project team

Sam Parsons

Principal Research Fellow

View profile

Lee Elliot Major

Professor of Social Mobility, Centre for Social Mobility, University of Exeter

Cohort studies used

The researchers used data from the following cohort studies in this project.

1970 British Cohort Study

The 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) is following the lives of around 17,000 people born in England, Scotland and Wales in a single week of 1970.

Next Steps

Next Steps follows the lives of around 16,000 people in England born in 1989-90.

Millennium Cohort Study

The Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) is following the lives of around 19,000 young people born across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2000-02.