In this issue

• Our thoughts on the last month's news and announcements including The Difference conference, social media bans, and the Milburn Review
• Some things we enjoyed reading from the RSA, the IES, and the SRA (also some things that are not three letter acronyms)
• Some things to look forward to over the next month like the Schools White Paper, JRF's UK Poverty 2026 report launch, and two Susannah Hardyman speaking events
• If you get to the end, Ben's concluding his last ever edition of Impetus Insights by talking about evaluation methodologies and outcomes frameworks

News and views

Our focus here, as at Impetus, is on the outcomes that we know work to improve the life chances of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds – school engagement, educational attainment, and sustained employment.

• Delivering the biggest school inclusion conference on the first working week Saturday of the year is a bold move but our portfolio partner The Difference pulled it off again this year. 800 delegates from all over the UK and beyond packed into UCL with a desire to learn how schools can deliver inclusion for all pupils. The Impetus policy team was out in force on the day. Susannah talked to a packed room about the opportunities that exist for schools to access grant funding and the importance of clarity in the funding ask. On a post-16 panel Ayesha shared everything Youth Jobs Gap and the compound disadvantages that put some young people furthest from earning or learning. I had the pleasure of co-hosting a roundtable for Inclusion for All partners where we discussed opportunities and barriers to evolving schools towards inclusion in the next 12 months. If LinkedIn was anything to go by, delegates found the conference ‘energising', ‘informative' and ‘inspiring' – not something that's easy to achieve. If you are a school leader who wants to take a strategic approach to inclusion but needs support, The Difference launched its new Schools Partnership programme on the day. Info on how to apply is here. (Carlie Goldsmith, Senior Policy Advisor)
• When I first joined Impetus, it was to deliver some innovative research using the new Longitudinal Education Outcomes dataset – what became the Youth Jobs Gap series. These days, everyone's at it. EPI this month have looked at earnings for young people in their early 20s, and unsurprisingly young people from disadvantaged backgrounds earn less at 25 than their non-disadvantaged peers. "GCSE attainment at 16 is a key driver of this earnings gap, especially for women. The raw earnings gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students is around £4,100 but falls by £2,000 for women and £1,500 for men after controlling for prior attainment." The eagle eyed among you will note that the idea that roughly half an employment gap is due to GCSE qualifications and half is due to other stuff is exactly what we found when looking at employment outcomes rather than wages. A nice coincidence. (Ben Gadsby, Head of Policy and Research)
• Alun Francis, Chair of the Social Mobility Commission recently wrote in FE Week, in response to a piece by Lee Elliot Major, on the government's announcement of the Milburn Review. He writes that Major's attribution of high NEET rates to "deficit approaches" are a "distraction" from the real problem. I'm not sure I entirely agree with this – Francis suggests that equity-based thinking is widespread and well established. Whether or not intentional, the system is still too often placing the onus on young people who are "failing" to achieve – even Francis referring to young people as "NEETs" is symptomatic of this. However, one thing he wrote really resonated with me: that these young people "are not a homogenous group". Our Youth Jobs Gap research is perhaps one of the best examples of this. Many readers will know we found evidence of "compound disadvantage": where certain demographic characteristics compound, interact and intersect in complex ways. For example, a young person who is eligible for free school meals, who has below a Level 2 qualification and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is almost three times more likely to be NEET than average. In short, we found very small demographic groups of young people face specific barriers, and a much higher NEET likelihood. And though I'm not advocating for policies tailored to each individual young person, I believe that far more can be done to (a) understand the unique experiences of these groups and (b) target support in a way that is most impactful. (Ayesha Baloch, Senior Policy Advisor)
• The debate around young people's social media use has hit boiling point with government ministers reportedly drawing up a range of proposals with restrictions on night-time use and banning certain types of content on the table. It's fast becoming a genuine "water cooler" policy moment, with anxious parents, the Leader of the Opposition's announcement, an upcoming amendment to the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and Australia's under-16s ban all turning up the heat. With our own research showing late night online presenteeism is driving school absence we agree there's a problem. We want government to support families and communities to build healthier norms around technology but in the current evidence-free zone, it's hard to know exactly what from a policy perspective will move the dial. (Carlie Goldsmith, Senior Policy Advisor)
• News that the government is investing £200 million to train all teachers and school staff on SEND and inclusion was met with a cautious welcome from sector leaders this month. You may remember we argued last year that expertise on inclusion had not kept pace with areas such as teaching and learning and recommended the DfE prioritise professional development for all leaders and staff so measurable improvements in inclusion, increased belonging and reduced lost learning could be achieved. The cautious welcome reflects the reality that this investment alone will not be sufficient to turn the tide on school disengagement and there's still a live question about inclusion for who. We exist to support young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, and whilst this group are disproportionately likely to have identified SEND not all of them do but will have other needs that are a barrier to engagement. This is why we've consistently argued for the definition of inclusion to be broadened. Like many across the sector, we are still waiting with bated breath. (Carlie Goldsmith, Senior Policy Advisor)
• You already know Ben is leaving Impetus after eight years, including nearly two as my boss. Organisations talk a lot about EDI, but it's not always clear what that looks like in practice - so here's a real example. Policy is a highly competitive field. I come from a working-class background, built experience as a volunteer campaigner, and was switching careers in my late forties when I saw the role advertised. What happened next is why I applied, when I hadn't to other similar roles. The advert included an invite for prospective candidates to chat and a link that made it easy to schedule. When I met Ben, he took my question seriously - "would Impetus consider someone like me?" - and gave me what I now know is a characteristic thoughtful but clear answer. It's a long shot, he concluded, but go for it. His steer sounded sincere and honest and gave me the belief I needed to take a chance. That moment changed a lot. Thank you, Ben. (Carlie Goldsmith, Senior Policy Advisor)

Top reads

Here's our roundup of some of the most useful and thought-provoking reads across a range of interesting areas...

• As practitioners, wonks, and most importantly young people know well, wrapping your head around the provision available to support individuals into education, employment or training is a hero's quest. The system is complex and fragmented, but the Institute for Employment Studies has developed a map of support available to four groups of young people at highest risk of being NEET. The groups IES considered were care-experienced young people; young people with mental ill health; young people with experience of the criminal justice system and those with special educational needs and disabilities. They ultimately found a total of 80(!) interventions which fit their criteria and have handily put them into what looks like a tube map, which tracks the journey from secondary education to employment, showing the "stops" along the way for each of the four groups. I know my own experience of trying to understand the landscape has certainly been frustrating - and don't even get me started on skills provision - so I can't imagine what it's like for the young people navigating the system. If we don't understand what's out there, trying to make improvements feels like a fool's errand. As the IES' Billy Campbell writes, lives are indeed non-linear and cannot be reduced to a map, but information like this "can act as a tool to open conversations about what's working, what's missing and where support can be better joined up to help people as they navigate the support system. (Ayesha Baloch, Senior Policy Advisor)
• I have long thought that school behaviour policies have a lot of potential for researchers interested in exploring differences in a range of pupil outcomes. I was really interested then to read a blog from EPI doing exactly that – this time analysing policies from 45 schools in three London Boroughs to explore the relationship between the content of policies and rates of absence, suspension and exclusion. It finds restorative, trauma-informed, and vulnerable-learner-focused policies are more common in schools with lower exclusion, suspension, and absence rates. With the obvious caveat that more research is needed, I'd highly recommend taking a look. (Carlie Goldsmith, Senior Policy Advisor)
• A brilliantly creative piece of research from the The RSA has used anonymised Facebook data to uncover how social and economic divides influence life chances, earning and wellbeing. The report found children from low-income households who grow up in areas with high levels of cross-income friendship earn roughly £3,000 more per year as adults, compared with their less well-connected peers. The benefits of having a network are well established, but this study is fascinating as I believe it's one of the few to quantify what that means for long term outcomes. Unsurprisingly, the research reiterates that schools are important for both parental and pupil mixing, while local social infrastructure e.g. community centres and libraries are identified as key places where people mix across lines of difference. Meanwhile, everyday barriers such as childcare and the cost of transport can prevent lower-income families from participating in activities which would expand their networks, thus entrenching existing socioeconomic divides. The report is about networks, but when reading it I was struck by the fact that many of the solutions outlined simply require funding. The government's decision to lift the two-child benefit limit was momentous. But there's also a space for arguably "smaller" policy changes (for example, free transport for under-22s) which cut across multiple government departments but sit within a wider "north star" of anti-poverty. This could provide solutions to two of the most acute domestic pressures faced by the government: (1) the accusation they have no coherent strategy and (2) the persistently high cost of living and its implications. The government is coming under increasing pressure to pin their flag to, well, literally anything. For a Labour government, I struggle to think of anything more worthy than this. (Ayesha Baloch, Senior Policy Advisor)
• I've really enjoyed being on the advisory board for DWP's employment data labs, and helping the team think about how more employability evaluation can make a real difference to funders and policy makers. A few months ago I recommended the team to the Social Research Association for a magazine feature, and just before Christmas I got the lovely surprise of seeing it in the wild! There's also a useful article for those of you in the funding community about funding evaluation. Enjoy! (Ben Gadsby, Head of Policy and Research)
• My section of Insights is quickly becoming a John Burn-Murdoch fan page. This month, we have a piece that hits a little closer to home. Based on a groundbreaking study from the University of Chicago and Northwestern University which has found that young adults who are unlikely to afford home ownership disproportionately demonstrate reduced work effort, increased leisure spending and investment in risky financial assets like cryptocurrency, Burn-Murdoch extends this to a UK context. He finds a similar picture: young British renters who have little chance of being able to pay a deposit on a house are much more likely to take financial risks, such as online betting. Meanwhile, fewer young employees see the point of the nine to five. Burn-Murdoch writes, "it's not that previous generations were more engaged in their work because jobs back then were thrilling, it's that applying oneself at work used to be a means to an end." For too many young people, there is a pervasive feeling that the historical social contract, in which getting a job and working hard essentially guaranteed reaching key milestones in life such as owning a home or starting a family, has broken down. If the "point" of getting an education and eventually a job has historically been achieving these milestones – which now seem so far out of reach – it's no wonder young people are becoming increasingly nihilistic. (Ayesha Baloch, Senior Policy Advisor)
• I enjoyed this TES piece by Sam Freedman on the White Paper. It's an excellent summary of the challenges faced by government and the high stakes nature of the upcoming schools and SEND reform. It's a great quick read. (Carlie Goldsmith, Senior Policy Advisor) For a longer Sam Freedman read, the Centre for Education Systems published some detailed international comparisons just before Christmas. How does our accountability system compare to others? Now we know… (Ben Gadsby, Head of Policy and Research)

Look ahead

Monday 26 January is the CSJ event on Rewiring Education: The state of technical learning in England

Thursday 29 January is the launch of JRF's annual UK Poverty 2026 report

Tuesday 25 February, Susannah is speaking at an Onside event "Can youth work turn the tide on absence"

Thursday 26 February Susannah is speaking at a Work Foundation event on youth unemployment

And hopefully in February we will also see the long-awaited Schools White Paper from the DfE...

And finally...alternative approaches to evaluation

One last opportunity to share something a bit random I've stumbled across on a weekend. James Plunkett has been doing some thinking about evaluation and how we could make better social progress by evaluating a wider range of questions and using different outcomes frameworks. It's the exact embodiment of everything I have always wanted to try to use this section for – thoughtful, outcomes focussed, a bit esoteric. Colleagues tell me as this is my last edition I should make some kind of valedictory remarks, so let me finish by saying my belief that the Impetus approach to impact could improve the policymaking process is stronger than ever. I am, and always have been, a faithful. (Ben Gadsby, Head of Policy and Research)