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'll be sharing 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.

Sign up to get Impetus Insights direct to your inbox every month here.

It's been quite a big month, and at the risk of being a little self-indulgent, this section will be about us. We've just launched our tenth Youth Jobs Gap report, Exploring compound disadvantage.

When I say big… We had the boss in the studio chatting to Nick Robinson on the Today programme in the morning and some exclusive coverage in the Financial Times. Over 100 people enjoyed the launch event in Westminster and online, with the Minister for Employment talking about how important young people's prospects are to this government and Sonia Sodha chairing a great panel. And then we had pizza for lunch!

I guess you'll want to know what we found in Exploring compound disadvantage that caused such a stir? Keep scrolling 😊

Enjoy reading,

Ben 

Sign up to get Impetus Insights direct to your inbox every month.

In this issue

• Our thoughts on the last month's news and announcements including our Youth Jobs Gap report launch, some new attainment coalitions we're part of, and more voices calling for a greater understanding of inclusion
• Some things we enjoyed reading from ImpactEd on attendance, social mobility, and education research
• Some things to look forward to over the next month including the Spending Review, an event on internal alternative provision, and a conference on Advancing Youth Transitions Research with Administrative Data
• If you get to the end, I'm dunking on aptitude tests

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.

• Well folks, it may have come kicking and screaming, but my baby, Impetus Youth Jobs Gap: Exploring compound disadvantage has finally been launched, and our findings are stark. Using longitudinal education outcomes (LEO) data, we were able to quantify the effect of characteristics such as ethnic background, socio-economic disadvantage, qualification-level and more, on the likelihood of a young person being not in education, employment or training (NEET). We uncovered certain characteristics, including low qualification, SEND, and socio-economic disadvantage, that mean young people are more likely to be NEET, and when combined, significantly increase this likelihood – an effect we call "compound disadvantage". Our results were sobering, but we also found that qualifications are still our best bet for levelling the playing field, so we should continue to strive for better attainment outcomes for the most marginalised young people. All of this is thanks to LEO data, which uncovered granular differences, usually obscured in most data on NEET rates. It showed that if we are to truly understand the extent of the problem - and possible solutions - we need much more data and research like this. The Youth Jobs Gap report was a monumental effort, and its success is all thanks to the people mentioned in this LinkedIn post . My inbox is open to thoughts and reactions. (Ayesha Baloch, Senior Policy Advisor)
• I was lucky to find myself at the launch of the government's Youth Guarantee Trailblazers last Thursday. There were a couple of highlights (e.g. I was saluted by the Secretary of State. Literally.) But the one I wanted to share was meeting a brilliant young man who's been working with Liverpool's Thrive Youth Hub. When you spend too much time looking at data – as we so often do in policy and research – there's sometimes a danger of forgetting the real people behind it. It's good when you have a moment of being shocked back into reality, which is how it felt meeting a young man, Ethan, who has SEND, is care experienced and comes from a socioeconomically disadvantaged background. It also made me angry, because it confirmed to me that young people from certain backgrounds and growing up in certain areas will only continue in education or enter the labour market by actively fighting the system. How have we got ourselves into a situation where young people who have SEND, or low qualifications or are eligible for free school meals, are beating the odds if they succeed? Still, I do feel that government are becoming more awake to the scale of the problem, and with the launch of the Trailblazers, it feels like things are moving. (Ayesha Baloch, Senior Policy Advisor)
• We do a lot of work in coalition, and I'm delighted to be collaborating on two big issues in the 16-19 space. We're one of a baker's dozen organisations pushing for pupil premium to be extended to this age group – find out more in FE Week from our friends at Get Further and the AoC. Also in FE Week, news of our English and maths coalition, focussed on supporting people to get those key GCSEs, alongside the Learning and Work Institute and others – website here. If you want to get involved in either coalition, email me. (Ben Gadsby, Head of Policy)
• This month, I joined report launches by Excluded Lives and Centre for Young Lives, and was excited to see other voices join the Who is Losing Learning? Coalition and making the strong case for schools to evolve by putting inclusion at the centre of everything they do and for government to reform accountability, funding, data and local partnership working to make this transformation possible. Not having a universally agreed definition of inclusion was flagged as a major barrier, but I have news. We have a definition. It's here, its sector-backed and measurable! If you want your school, trust or MAT to adopt it, email me. (Carlie Goldsmith, Senior Policy Advisor)
• A big part of our work is about supporting young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to get good GCSEs. We do this because a) GCSEs matter and b) those young people are much less likely to get them. The Children's Commissioner's research shows lower GCSE results for people who move home more while at school – obviously there will be a lot of overlap between the two groups, and I suspect housing stability would be a fruitful area for government to work on to boost long-term outcomes. If any of our readers work on housing policy and want to link up, let me know! (Ben Gadsby, Head of Policy)

Top reads

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

• Research from ImpactEd Group reported startling drops in levels of school engagement between primary and secondary but one of the most worrying findings is that 11% of primary pupils and 46% of secondary school pupils report low levels of trust in their teachers. If we extrapolate this out, we might have a situation where around 2 million children in England don't have a teacher in school they trust. If we believe relationships matter, and at Impetus we absolutely do, this is dynamite, particularly at secondary where absence has shifted from being a crisis to a chronic problem and is a primary driver of the attainment gap. We must understand this better and I'm hoping our new research talking to young people about attendance will help shed more light on what is going on here. (Carlie Goldsmith, Senior Policy Advisor)
• The quarterly ONS NEET stats are out and I'm pleased to say the numbers have in fact, dropped. The percentage of people aged 18-24 years old who are not in education, employment or training (NEET), is now 14.8%, down 0.3 pp on the year. However, despite a fall in 4000 over the year, 854,000 young people are still NEET. Interestingly, looking at the figures for the larger group of 16-24 year olds, the decrease was largely driven by 26,000 fewer young men who are NEET. On the other hand, young women saw an increase of 19,000 on the year. If anyone has thoughts on why this is happening, please do drop me a line! (Ayesha Baloch, Senior Policy Advisor)
• Another 15 tweet thread from Peps McCrea with the latest education research. Another paper on school mental health interventions finding long-term negative effects, including increased distress (despite some short-term benefits). A suggestion that peer goals influence individual goals more than classroom expectations​ – peer effects seem to get much less attention than it should. And your regular reminder that growth mindset is probably not a thing – A review of RCTs finds the strongest studies show near-zero impact. (Ben Gadsby, Head of Policy)
• If you follow me on LinkedIn, you know what a fan I am of the dominant ‘individual works hard + make good choices = professional job and high pay' concept of social mobility relentlessly promoted in our culture. Those of us from working class backgrounds, and increasingly those of us who aren't, know you can work your socks off and make good choices and still end up in a low paid precarious job – and more than that you might choose to work in the many low paid and precarious jobs that are vital to our economy. The new IPPR blog on reclaiming social mobility for the Opportunity Mission was music to my ears. Read it and watch out for the final report due this summer. (Carlie Goldsmith, Senior Policy Advisor)
• I normally think of combined cadet forces as a relatively right-of-centre policy, not least because they only really became established in the state centre in the last 15 years. But the New Britain Project has approached the subject from a more left-of-centre position and wants to see them doubled by 2029 as they boost attendance and behaviour. I often complain about people asking for DfE money having to be spent on stuff that mostly benefits other departments (eg health), so I will confess to hypocrisy in liking the idea the MoD should spend money to boost school attendance. (Ben Gadsby, Head of Policy)
• In April I tuned into the livestream of Tackling child poverty – Learning from the past, shaping the future – a Prospect, Trussel Trust, Save the Children and Share event. I'm old enough to remember a time when governments committed to eliminate child poverty, so it was fascinating to hear reflections on what the last two decades of policy have taught us. Key insights for me. Poverty is incredibly amenable to policy, so when governments chose to act, it works. Unlike in Scotland, there's no "settled will" or public buy-in in England that investment is needed to take children out of poverty. Getting people into work as a poverty alleviation strategy didn't work because so much work was poorly paid and insecure. Lastly, schools are one of a few ‘last man standing' services and outcomes will not improve until action is taken on poverty. With children eligible for FSMs 40% less likely to achieve a pass at GCSE English and maths and twice as likely to be not earning or learning in young adulthood the Child Poverty Taskforce – when it reports in the Autumn - certainly has a major challenge on its hands. (Carlie Goldsmith, Senior Policy Advisor)

Look ahead

• Tuesday 3 June Ben is speaking alongside all the cool kids at the Advancing Youth Transitions Research with Administrative Data conference. Sign up here
• Wednesday 4 June is the Collaborative Futures: Health and Education Conference
• Tuesday 10 June it's the labour market stats
• Wednesday 11 June it's the Spending Review
• Thursday 19 June the cool kids are at it again – it's the Labour Force and Annual Population Surveys User Conference 2025
• Thursday 26 June The Difference, have an event on What Works - The Tenets of Effective Internal Alternative Provision

And finally...dunking on aptitude tests

I sometimes use this section to share things where I learned something new. I sometimes use this section to share things that confirmed my existing worldview. This piece is the latter – aptitude tests are a waste of time. The key line is highlighting the error in conflating "the fact tests give quantifiable results for the idea that such results are somehow objective." I would add: or meaningful. Part of what I like about Impetus is we're invariably sceptical about this kind of thing unless there's clear link to something that matters. (Ben Gadsby, Head of Policy and Research)

The blog "no dumb idea" is great. It explores simple ideas to see if they have any merit when fully thought through. Last month they explored whether charging people $1 to apply for a job is a good idea. They acknowledge it would be about as popular as gout, but as we head towards very large numbers of AI driven applications probably being scored by AI, there's some merit in it. They suggest hiring firms should donate the application fees to charity, for PR reasons and also to avoid weird incentives. Can I go a step further – donate the money to charities working to support young people to get into work? If any readers want to partner on a trial of this, message me…