Welcome to Impetus Insights... a place where we discuss ideas, articles and interesting reading about education and employment policy - and what we think it means for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. We share this every month alongside news and updates about our own policy work. We’d love to hear what you think of this edition, and what you’d like to see in future newsletters.

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We are once again in turbulent political times, and with a change of leadership at the top of government taking up a lot of airtime, it is important that attention is not diverted from the young people who need the most support. Last month we saw the number of young people who are neither learning nor earning break the grim 1 million mark, so the challenges facing any new PM remains significant.

Against this backdrop, it has been encouraging to see Impetus research continuing to shape the debate. Our work on school attendance was referenced repeatedly by the OECD, while Alan Milburn's recent interim report quoted our Youth Jobs Gap research throughout. It was great to have the opportunity to speak to the BBC about how our portfolio partners are helping tackle the barriers that prevent too many young people from accessing work.

Looking ahead, I'll be speaking at the Festival of Education next month alongside our partners at Co-op Academies and The Two Counties Trust, discussing our work on building and scaling Inclusion Bases across their multi-academy trusts, and later I'll be joining Sister System, Get Further and Streets of Growth to explore how we can improve post-16 transitions for young people. We will also be publishing the final report in our Youth Jobs Gap series later in July - this time setting out recommendations for how the government can effectively deliver the Youth Guarantee for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Enjoy reading,

Susannah

In this issue

This month we look at what turbulent political times mean for young people facing the greatest barriers, from the rise in young people who are neither learning nor earning, to the crisis in school attendance and post-16 transitions. We also reflect on the Milburn Review Interim Report, welcome international recognition of our attendance research, discuss the upcoming Festival of Education, and our upcoming report Closing the Youth Jobs Gap, which proposes ways that the government can deliver the Youth Guarantee specifically for disadvantaged young people.

News and views

Our focus here 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.

• Earlier this month Impetus’s research with Public First was featured multiple times in the OECD’s new report on school attendance - highlighting the growing international recognition of this issue. This work has helped to build a clearer picture of why attendance has shifted so significantly in recent years, particularly in the wake of the pandemic. Across our research, we’ve explored how rising mental health challenges, declining parental confidence, and the cost-of-living crisis are shaping attendance patterns. We’ve also heard directly from young people that going to school is no longer automatic, but a daily decision shaped by their sense of belonging, expectations of success, and the pull of online life. While overall absence is beginning to fall, progress for the pupils missing the most school remains far too slow and severe absence has risen. The OECD’s report reinforces what we’ve found: attendance is not a niche issue, but a systemic and global challenge. We’ll continue to build the evidence base, with our next report - focused on teachers’ perspectives on attendance - launching in September. (Dr Carlie Goldsmith, Head of Education Policy)

• Ever since I arrived at Impetus, we’ve taken a whole life course perspective to our work, because we understand that problems like young people not earning or learning or not gaining vital qualifications are not single events - but instead part of a chain of disadvantages that stretch back into early childhood. So, it was very satisfying this month when the interim report of the Milburn Review argued powerfully that the roots of youth unemployment are found in the early years and then hardened by poor educational experiences, disengagement from school and wide attainment gaps. This came in the same month that new reports from EPI and The Sutton Trust add more important and interesting evidence to support this point. EPI found that in 2023/24 prior attainment across the primary and early secondary years collectively accounts for 44% of the GCSE attainment gap and that disrupted education - primarily absence - contributes 34%. The Sutton Trust show how attainment and earnings for FSM eligible children are shaped by gender, ethnicity and region. Two things really stood out for me. Firstly, that the mechanisms currently in place to help disadvantaged pupils catch up are not yet sufficient to overcome the gaps already present by age five. Secondly, FSM eligible young people are not a monolith. Instead - like the rest of us - they lead lives shaped by socio-economic status and the place they live and characteristics like their gender. Those with worse education outcomes, for example, can have poorer economic outcomes, particularly girls. All this has policy and political implications. It shows that class must be central to diversity and inclusion conversations and that if government wants to deliver on its commitment to halve the attainment gap it must lean heavily into the things (like tutoring) we know work and, with some urgency, fill gaps where the evidence base is weak – like on school attendance. But it must do so in ways that are clear-eyed and curious about the ways class, ethnicity and place intersect, and doesn’t just flatten out these nuances because it’s hard. (Dr Carlie Goldsmith, Head of Education Policy)

• In a move that surprised no one, the government has announced its intention to adopt an Australia style social media ban for Under-16s. Given how popular a ban is amongst parents, it might be a surprising that it hasn’t been met with universal applause, with some campaigners and organisations warning that blanket bans risk doing more harm than good. Big questions remain about what social media platforms will be included, how the ban will work and what the timeline is. It’s definitely one to watch. (Dr Carlie Goldsmith, Head of Education Policy)

• Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of spending a day at the Breaking Barriers Collective, a recent collective intelligence event in partnership with Edge Foundation and FE News. The line-up told a clear story about how high this is on the government’s priority list, with a keynote from Jacqui Smith, fireside chat with Pat McFadden's Skills Adviser Praful Nargund and a number of civil servants from across departments. The NEET issue is rare in that it cuts across many different parts of government and the sector, so it was great to all be in one room. What made the day different from the usual panel circuit was the format - a half-day workshop to sit down with experts from across the system and really work through the knottier issues. A particular highlight was chairing the opening session in which we heard firsthand from a young person and experts from the frontline. I came away with three things I hadn't fully reckoned with: a young person who couldn't start a job because they couldn't open a bank account; how much weight "having someone in your corner" carries, as Roman Dibden from Breakout Charity put it; and just how unequipped schools can be for that post-16 transition point, as one young person, Amy, described with real generosity. For anyone interested, I talk more about the day on Edge Foundation’s Insights from the Edge podcast, with the brilliant Lauren Mistry, Deputy-CEO of Youth Employment UK, and in this FE News vox pop! (Ayesha Baloch, Head of Youth Employment Policy)

Top reads

Here’s our roundup of some of the most useful and thought-provoking reads (and listens!) across a range of interesting areas... 

• Last month, the interim report of the Young People and Work Inquiry, led by Alan Milburn was published, alongside a grim release of quarterly statistics of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET), which has now surpassed one million. Alan Milburn was unflinching in his diagnosis – highlighting that the figure of one million NEET young people is underpinned by failure at each stage of a young person’s journey into work. We were also happy to see our Youth Jobs Gap research referenced a number of times, highlighting that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are at the sharpest end of this trend. As the Milburn Review team gear up to publish their final report in the autumn, we’ve also been working on our next - and final - Youth Jobs Gap report. This will outline a series of recommendations, which we believe are the most impactful way for government to reach NEET young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. We hope this report will inform the final report of the Milburn Review, and into the government’s delivery of the Youth Guarantee. Impetus has slowly been chipping away at this issue for decades. To finally see the attention and action that we have long called for, feels momentous. (Ayesha Baloch, Head of Youth Employment Policy)

• Our Who is Losing Learning coalition partners Mission 44 and the Centre for Young Lives have published a guide to implementing the schools white paper, informed by a series of regional engagement events. I was lucky enough to be at the first workshops, and it’s interesting that many of the themes that emerged in London - the importance of early intervention and prevention, partnership working and the need for accountability systems to incentivise and not punish inclusion - are reflected in experiences across the wider country. But consensus about a problem doesn’t always translate into effective implementation - a risk even in times of stability. I hope the progress we’ve made so far on lost learning and the need for inclusion for all children in education continues, whatever happens next. (Dr Carlie Goldsmith, Head of Education Policy)

• For our upcoming report, I've spent a fair chunk of the past month getting my head around what is happening in the Netherlands that means they have the lowest NEET rate in the OECD. This research project used Dutch population data to track which personal characteristics explain experiencing at least one month of NEET during the school-to-work transition. It found leaving school without key qualifications was a key predictor of being NEET - no surprises there. But I was particularly interested in the finding that intergenerational factors strongly contribute to problematic school-to-work transitions. So much so, that they suggest “parental unemployment seems intergenerationally transmissible to children”. This is something that seems to be coming up more and more in policy discussions on NEET young people, but definitely feels like it needs exploring further in the UK context. (Ayesha Baloch, Head of Youth Employment Policy)

• Recommended listens this month: An excellent IFS cluster on inequality in Britain cuts through the noise on what is one of the biggest political issues of the moment; Inside Your Ed talked all things school admissions; and an education-focused More or Less (not strictly a podcast, I know) reveals the winner of a very nerdy bet… (Dr Carlie Goldsmith, Head of Education Policy)

Look ahead

• Thursday 2nd and Friday 3rd of July - Festival of Education: If you are heading down to Wellington College for the annual Festival of Education do join us for two great panel events. On Thursday morning, join Susannah for a panel discussion with our portfolio partners The Two Counties Trust and Co-op Academies Trust where they reflect on two years of work with us building and scaling Inclusion Bases across their multi-academy trusts. On Thursday afternoon, join her again but this time for a discussion about the barriers young people face in post-16 transitions and what needs to be done to get them right with the CEOs of Sister System, Get Further and Streets of Growth.
• Thursday 2nd July - The Etio Conference 2026: Tackling the National Attendance Challenge
• Thursday 9th of July: DfE publish Annual Suspensions and Permanent Exclusions in England
• Thursday 15 July: Impetus report Closing the Youth Jobs Gap published

And finally...

I’ve been reflecting on a recent provocative blog from Impetus friend Sam Freedman, where he argues that we may have been addressing inequality in education the wrong way for years. Sam argues that despite better schools, extra funding and countless well‑intentioned policies over decades, the attainment gap between richer and poorer pupils hasn’t closed - and probably never will. That’s because the education system isn’t just about learning; it’s also designed to rank people, and as long as that hierarchy exists, wealthier families will always find ways (through tutoring, support, or other advantages) to ensure their kids stay ahead. Rather than endlessly chasing the impossible dream of “closing the gap”, Sam proposes a radically different approach; we should instead focus on reducing how much that gap matters – for example by softening exam systems, opening up opportunities beyond narrow academic routes, and making it easier to succeed without top grades or elite credentials. In short, it’s a call to be more honest about what’s possible within the current system, and to focus more on reducing the real-world consequences of the attainment gap. Although at Impetus we have found that strong GCSE results can be a gamechanger in levelling the playing field, it’s the kind of leftfield thinking we love Sam for and gives us a lot to ponder! (Claire Leigh, Director of Public Affairs)