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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Even though my brain still very much operates in school terms, March marks the official end of the Impetus year and we have spent time this month looking back at some of things that we have achieved - often in partnership with many of you. I would have been delighted if you had told me this time last year that:

• Our new Youth Jobs Gap research dropped with a speech from the Minister for Employment and splashes in the FT and on the Today Programme, and has since been cited across the sector including in the Post 16 Education and Skills White Paper and by Alan Milburn as he conducts his review into the NEET crisis
• £2.4bn of funding was announced for the Youth Guarantee we’ve been advocating for with colleagues in the Youth Employment Group
• Oracy was announced as a priority alongside reading, writing and arithmetic in the Curriculum and Assessment Review, thanks in no small part to the hard work of our portfolio partner Voice 21
• The Schools White Paper contained 6 out of 10 asks made by the Who is Losing Learning coalition, including adopting our definition of inclusion and committing £1.6 billion to building inclusive mainstream provision
• In the same White Paper, the government committed to halving the attainment gap

Some big wins, and testament to the hard work of our team, past and present, and our partners. We have some equally exciting plans for the coming year, with new reports coming up in our school absence and Youth Jobs Gap series, as well as working alongside Government to make sure that these newly-announced policies are implemented well.

Enjoy reading,

Susannah

In this issue

• Big news on youth employment: the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions announced almost £1 billion of additional funding to tackle NEET, including an expansion of the Jobs Guarantee to 18–24 year olds.
• We've had more time to digest the Schools White Paper, and while we support the direction of travel, we have questions – on the attainment gap, attendance, inclusion bases and more. Plus: free school breakfast clubs are scaling up, and the two-child benefit cap is no more.
• Some things we enjoyed reading, from Anthropic on AI and early careers, John Burn-Murdoch on the roots of the NEET crisis, and a Wonkhe piece on who really gets to enjoy education.
• And finally, Claire celebrates two organisations doing something rare and important: being honest in public about their impact data.

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.

• It’s been a big month for youth employment. Last week, I was fortunate to attend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions’ announcement of almost £1 billion of additional funding to reduce rates of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET). We’ve been broadly supportive of the government’s reforms over the past year or so, but have consistently advocated for the Jobs Guarantee to be extended beyond age 21. I was therefore absolutely delighted to see the Secretary of State commit to expanding the scheme to eligible young people aged between 18-24. This means an increase in the number of young people the scheme will reach from 55,000 to 90,000 over the next three years. It will also avoid a cliff edge of support - which we know will be particularly detrimental for young people who need it most, and brings the total resource committed to the Youth Guarantee agenda to over £2 billion. (Ayesha Baloch, Head of Youth Employment Policy)
• Bridget Phillipson and her team of ministers and officials must be breathing a huge sigh of relief. The warm but cautious welcome the Schools White Paper received in the first hours of life continued, a substantial achievement given the task. But what does it mean for the young people we care about, those from disadvantaged backgrounds? We’ve put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, here. In a nutshell, we fully support the direction of travel because we know that when inclusion and excellence move together, the payoff is profound. But we’re worried there’s a lack of detail that leaves important but unanswered questions. How exactly is the attainment gap between young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and their more advantaged peers going to be halved? Will a list of commitments on attendance really change the game for those furthest from the classroom? And what does it actually mean in practice to have an ‘inclusion base’ in every school, particularly when school leaders have warned there isn’t space and they risk becoming little more than dumping grounds for naughty pupils? Similarly, we welcome the commitment to stronger oversight on pupil movements, but worry nationalising the data risks missing local patterns and important context. At a school inclusion conference I spoke at just days after publication, these themes and others – the tight funding environment, the impact of greater pressure on already overstretched staff, the reality of collaboration in a fragmented system, and feeling that government had put too many ‘to dos’ on everyone’s list including its own – made up the conversation. We will continue our work on this, and there are lots of opportunities to have your say. The first, a consultation on the proposals to reform the SEND system, closes 18 May. (Carlie Goldsmith, Head of Education Policy)
• April sees the roll out of the second wave of the Government’s free school breakfast clubs, following a successful pilot of the scheme over the last year. The scale up will see 500 new clubs launch, meaning over 300,000 children across 1,250 schools can benefit, with more set to follow next year. And the scale up can’t come quickly enough, as the Trussell Trust released their end of year stats showing 900,000 parcels were provided for children over the past year, a 34% increase since 2019. As this new report from former Impetus portfolio partner Magic Breakfast shows, hunger can have a dramatic impact on school engagement and attainment, with 35% of children finding it harder concentrate at school when they are hungry, and 28% ‘lacking the energy to participate’. Breakfast Clubs, using the Magic Breakfast model, have been shown to be a key tool for raising the attainment of disadvantaged young people. The fact that - according to Child Poverty Action Group analysis - around 900,000 children and young people experiencing poverty aren’t eligible for Free School Meals under current criteria means that school hunger is a challenge for far too many children. Let’s hope the new breakfast clubs start to turn the tide.(Claire Leigh, Director of Public Affairs)
• Legislation to end the two-child benefits limit received Royal Assent this month, a change estimated to lift between 300-450,000 children out of poverty. It’s a significant moment, and one I hope will make a material difference to the lives of children who, like me, grow up in families of more than two children who receive income support from the state. But given wider global political developments this month, and the grave consequences this will have for our economy if it continues, it’s hard not to feel that this progress, and any further progress on reducing child poverty, sits on fragile ground. Policy wins like this matter enormously, but they do not exist in a vacuum. Economic instability, rising costs, and geopolitical uncertainty have a way of eroding even the most well-intentioned reforms, often hitting the poorest families first and hardest. (Carlie Goldsmith, Head of Education Policy)
• In a real pinch-me moment, Impetus was invited to present to the Race Equality Engagement Group (REEG) last week. The REEG was formed to “strengthen the government’s links with ethnic minority communities, enabling effective, two-way dialogue on the government’s work to tackle race inequalities” and is chaired by Baroness Doreen Lawrence with the Minister for Equalities, Seema Malhotra. Their most recent roundtable focused on race inequalities in education and youth employment, and we were fortunate to present alongside our brilliant portfolio partners Streets of Growth and Business Launchpad. Between meeting the REEG members and getting to see the inside of the FCDO, there was no shortage of excitement. But my favourite part of the day was undoubtedly hearing about the lives of the young people with whom Streets of Growth and Business Launchpad have worked. In the youth voice debate, I am very much on the side that people with lived experience have the best understanding of their own needs. It felt special to witness young people telling the people who wield so much influence over their lives about their stories, in their own words. An experience I won’t soon forget. (Ayesha Baloch, Head of Youth Employment Policy)

Top reads

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

• New research from Anthropic suggests AI isn’t leading to mass job losses - at least not yet - but it may be quietly reshaping early career opportunities. While unemployment hasn’t increased in AI-exposed roles, there are signs that hiring into these jobs, especially for younger workers, is slowing. That matters for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, who often rely on entry-level roles as a first step into higher-paid, professional careers. Impetus research has found that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are already 66% more likely to be NEET than average. According to Anthropic, many of the most AI-exposed jobs sit in office-based sectors like admin, customer service and tech, areas that have traditionally offered more accessible routes into stable employment. If these entry points begin to shrink or require higher skills from the outset, those without strong networks, qualifications, or support risk being left further behind. The takeaway? The risk isn’t mass job loss today - it’s fewer chances to get a foot in the door tomorrow. (Claire Leigh, Director of Public Affairs)
• It was great to see our friend Terry Grego, former Director of Programmes at Football Beyond Borders, writing about inclusion and belonging for Schools Week this month. Drawing on his experience as a Pupil Referral Unit deputy head, the piece makes a powerful case for inclusive practice in schools to better support students and avoids the harm caused by exclusion. (Carlie Goldsmith, Head of Education Policy)
• I’m back with my usual homage to the Financial Times' John Burn-Murdoch. In his latest article on youth employment, I was particularly pleased to see his recognition that the current NEET crisis has its roots in school, with factors such as higher absence rates jeopardising the crucial school-to-work transition point. We also know young people missing out on crucial English and maths GCSEs are over 70% more likely to be NEET than average. Alongside this, JBM makes an important point about young people who are “slipping through the cracks”, such as those falling out of the system at the end of statutory education. As he writes, 10% of 16-17 year olds are currently classified as NEET or unknown to the local authorities in which they live. Meanwhile, according to the Learning and Work Institute,1 in 2 young people who are NEET are not claiming benefits at all, meaning there is no systematic way of reaching them. I’m thinking a lot about this for the next instalment of our Youth Jobs Gap report, and drawing on best practice in places like the Netherlands, which boasts the lowest NEET rate in the OECD. If Insights readers have any bright ideas for how we can address the ‘hidden NEET’ issue, please do drop me a line! (Ayesha Baloch, Head of Youth Employment Policy)
• A great FFT Education Datalab blog on unauthorised absence reveals startling findings that have major implications for schools and policy makers. Unauthorised absence makes up approximately 30-40% of all time missed from the classroom, but at primary school 22% of unauthorised absences came from just 2% of pupils, while at secondary this rises to 48% of unauthorised absences from just 2% of pupils. This is astonishing and suggests a much more targeted approach to a small number of families is needed. (Carlie Goldsmith, Head of Education Policy)
• One of the things that has surprised me about the reaction to the Schools White Paper has been the silence around the announcements made on enrichment. After all, if delivered well it could be hugely important for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. For anyone out there interested in understanding more about this policy area, this report from Public First is a solid place to start. (Carlie Goldsmith, Head of Education Policy)
• As the national conversation turns once more to questions about what higher education courses are a “good investment” and which are a “rip off”, this blog from Wonkhe – which argues that the ability to enjoy education, and to study out of curiosity rather than necessity, is unevenly distributed and shaped by social class – is essential reading. (Carlie Goldsmith, Head of Education Policy)

Look ahead

Parliament breaks for Easter recess on 26 March and the House returns on 13 April.

And finally...

… I’ve been trying to channel Ben Gadsby since his departure from Impetus in many ways, not least in championing the wider use of impact data and analysis in the third sector. It was therefore heartening to see these two very different posts on LinkedIn over the past couple of weeks: Firstly this, from our friends and brand new portfolio partner Get Further, on their 2021–25 GCSE Resit Tuition Impact Report, which shows that students from disadvantaged backgrounds who attended a term of Get Further GCSE tuition exceeded the national average resit pass rate, and by quite some measure. We often ‘know’ that what we are doing is having an impact, but unless we ‘know know’, using sound analytical methods to generate reliable and replicable data, we can’t make the course corrections that will allow us to grow our impact. This is about as central to the Impetus philosophy as it gets. Which is why it was just as heartening to see this post on LinkedIn from The Centre for Transforming Access and Student Outcomes, announcing the closure of a programme that an evaluation showed to be having little impact on disadvantaged university students. Not only that, but they decided to talk about the decision publicly, and as a success story. Hurrah to that, and more of it please! (Claire Leigh, Director of Public Affairs)