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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Parliament is back after a busy party conference season, and for those of us working on youth employment it felt like a moment of real alignment. We started Labour Party Conference with a packed panel alongside the Centre for Social Justice and Get Further, with Alan Milburn, Szu Ping Chan and Alice Eardley, and across Labour and Conservative conferences we heard government, charities and employers agreeing on the urgency of the NEET crisis. The question now is whether that consensus turns into ambitious reform, and the final Milburn report, due next month, will be an important test.

What struck us, though, was how little space education got by comparison. There were notably few fringe events on schools, despite a persistent attainment gap, a widening attendance gap and the urgent task of making schools inclusive for all. We were pleased to bring our new attendance report, A crisis of disengagement, to conference with LabourList, and to hear the Minister for Early Education and the Chair of the Education Select Committee back its central finding: teachers see attendance as an engagement issue, not a behaviour one.

This month’s GCSE data shows why that gap in the conversation matters. Our analysis, covered in Schools Week and The Times, found that in the South East just 40.4% of pupils eligible for free school meals achieved a standard pass in English and maths, against 74.7% of their better-off peers. That is the largest regional gap in England, in a region whose overall results are among the strongest. Young people without these qualifications are twice as likely to become NEET. You can’t solve the youth employment challenge without looking at what happens in school, and we’ll keep making that case.

Thank you to everyone who joined us at events and on panels this conference season.

Enjoy reading,

Susannah

In this issue

In this edition, we reflect on a hectic but rewarding party conference season. We discuss new DfE data that shows surprising regional variation in GCSE English and maths attainment for pupils eligible for free school meals and set out why understanding who is being locked out of attendance gains is the focus of our next phase of work. We also cover the publication of the Fonagy review into youth mental health, which cites our ‘lifetime cost of a NEET young person’ figure and rejects the idea of a “snowflake generation”, and on conversations about the importance of having a “trusted adult” in the workplace, while welcoming the government’s ambition to give oracy equal status with reading and writing. As many of us decide to switch on the heating, we close with a warning that rising energy bills and poor housing risk driving more absence and lower attainment among the children already facing the biggest barriers.

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.

• Parliament is sitting again after a hectic party conference season. Team Impetus were busier than ever, but one thing struck me; if you put the NEET issue and soon to-be-published final Milburn report to one side, fringe events and policy conversations on young people in general, and on education more specifically, were notably absent. This is surprising given the list of urgent challenges: A persistent disadvantage attainment gap, a widening disadvantage attendance gap, the ongoing challenge of reforming the system so schools are inclusive for all, curriculum and assessment reforms, the implications of the devolution agenda for education, and wider issues like the unacceptably high rates of child poverty and the state of child health. It’s a vacuum that should worry us all and further evidence, if any more is needed, of the relative powerlessness of this group in political terms. Putting all of that aside, we were delighted to host a busy panel at Labour Party Conference launching our latest attendance report, A crisis of disengagement: listening to, and learning from, teachers on school attendance.. Alongside great insights from school leaders on what works to improve attendance, it was encouraging to hear Minister for Early Education Paul Waugh MP and Chair of the Education Select Committee Helen Hayes MP support our central finding; teachers see attendance as a school engagement (and not behaviour) issue that the system is currently not set up to deal with. You can watch my summary of the event here. (Carlie Goldsmith, Head of Education Policy)
• New Key Stage 4 performance and attendance data was published by the DfE this month. 45% of young people who were eligible for free school meals passed their English and maths GCSEs, compared to 72.4% of their better off peers – a gap of 27.4%. Our analysis, featured in Schools Week and The Times, was a timely reminder that differences within regions are often as stark as those between them, with pupils from low-income families in the South East achieving the weakest GCSE English and maths results of any region in England, even as the area’s overall results remain among the strongest. Worryingly the disadvantage attendance gap is widening, with the fall in overall absence in Autumn and Spring terms 2025/26 coming entirely from pupils not eligible for free school meals. Pupils eligible for FSM are three times as likely to be persistently absent and four times as likely to be severely absent. Understanding why young people facing disadvantage are locked out of attendance gains and what must be done to reverse this trend is the focus of our next phase of work. (Carlie Goldsmith, Head of Education Policy)
• It’s been a whirlwind month of youth employment roundtables, panels and conferences, oh my! A personal favourite included giving evidence to the London Assembly as part of their inquiry into youth unemployment. Listening to the formidable Melissa Milner, Chief Officer at Catch 22 and the brilliant Felicity Halstead of GoodWork, what really stood out was that securing a job is really only the beginning of the journey for a young person. This was a discussion I’d had a few weeks before at a roundtable with Sir Charlie Mayfield - who led the government’s Keep Britain Working Inquiry - at Labour Party Conference. It struck me that the concept of the “trusted adult” does not stop when the young person themselves becomes an adult. All of us need someone in our corner who we feel cares about us and our development, and this is no less relevant in the workplace. Often though - as I heard on a panel alongside Dr. Luke Evans MP, Nil Güzelgün and Professor Duncan Ivison at Conservative Party Conference - young people may be showing up with more complex needs than employers, particularly SMEs, have the capacity to support. These discussions were rounded off by a brilliant event hosted by Islington Giving and Linklaters a few weeks ago, in which I heard about innovative solutions such as large corporates subsidising small businesses to host interns. This conference season has simultaneously been the most exhausting and most rewarding I’ve experienced. It’s clear that we are in that rare moment where the stars - the government, the third and the private sectors - are all aligned in terms of what needs to be done. What remains to be seen is whether we can translate this sentiment into actual results. (Ayesha Baloch, Head of Youth Employment Policy)
• I was pleased to see the final report of the Independent review into health conditions, ADHD and autism led by Professor Peter Fonagy cite Impetus' £244,000 "Lifetime Cost of a NEET Young Person" figure. I was even more pleased, however, to see the report discount the idea that this is a “snowflake” generation. Professor Fonagy finds that “mental distress has increased substantially across the population [...] but at a substantially faster rate for young people”. With successive cuts to youth services, a crisis of disengagement in the education system, exponential technological change, a global pandemic, and growing economic pressures, are any of us surprised that the chickens are coming home to roost? In a brilliant Substack, Vicki Ensor, Policy and Influencing Manager at mental health charity Mind, unpacks the findings. To complement the literature review and data analysis, Mind conducted a series of focus groups to explore the factors that influenced the mental health of different generations. Their research identified four mechanisms which could be driving the change: (1) Greater uncertainty and insecurity, including poverty; (2) Greater evaluation and comparison e.g. through social media; (3) Less belonging and (4) Fewer opportunities for rest and recovery, including physical activity, time in nature and play. I’m particularly interested to see how this dovetails with the final Milburn Report due to be published next month, alongside the Timms Review into disability support. It seems inevitable that there are welfare changes coming down the line, but I hope that any reforms take heed of Professor Fonagy’s assertion that in order to achieve real change, government must “tackle the social and economic conditions and the environmental context that shape mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions”. (Ayesha Baloch, Head of Youth Employment Policy)
• At the recent Confederation of School Trusts conference, Secretary of State for Education Lucy Powell MP set out the ambition to give speaking, listening and communication skills - oracy - equal status to reading and writing in English in upcoming curriculum reforms. Huge congratulations to our partners Voice 21 and everyone involved in the oracy movement who have worked tirelessly to make this happen. We welcome the announcement, but agree with experts from our portfolio that “real change will only come if every teacher and school leader has the skills and power to transform their classroom and school.” (Carlie Goldsmith, Head of Education Policy)

Top reads

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

• Our Closing the Youth Jobs Gap report called for every young person to have a structured work readiness offer at school, starting in Key Stage 3, so it was great to see some new research from the EY Foundation that backs this up. EYF's Beyond Horizons pilot gave more than 100 Year 8 pupils eligible for free school meals across four Bradford schools early experience of the workplace, with some interesting results. The share of pupils feeling positive or hopeful about their future careers rose from 48% to 85%, awareness of local employers jumped from 31% to 81%, and the proportion of those demonstrating greater self-awareness almost doubled, from 38% to 75%. It’s a small pilot, so we’ll be watching the next phase closely, but it chimes with what we hear from our portfolio partners; confidence and aspirations are shaped early, and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are far less likely to have the networks that open up the world of work. With young people eligible for free school meals twice as likely to become NEET, waiting until Year 10 or beyond leaves it too late for too many. While we were pleased to see updated statutory careers guidance which expects schools to offer two weeks’ worth of work experience between Years 7 and 11, this is only half the job. Schools need the capacity to deliver high-quality placements and stronger local partnerships with employers, so that the pupils facing the biggest barriers get the most out of them. In an environment where school budgets are increasingly squeezed, and educators are taking on more responsibility than ever, this will be tricky to navigate. (Ayesha Baloch, Head of Youth Employment Policy)
• A new report from the Children’s Commissioner brings together 162 separate data points and exposes the full extent of the postcode lottery childhood is in England. Pulling no punches, it calls the status quo an “unacceptable failure” and a “state of emergency” in some areas. With findings such as 8.3% of children in Blackpool are known to be Children Missing in Education compared with just 0.03% of children in Lambeth, it’s not hard to see why. Recommendations include attendance being a key outcome for strategic authorities and ministers introducing a new statutory duty for strategic authorities to collaborate on attendance between health, education, social care and police. Dame Rachel de Souza's term as Children's Commissioner ends in March 2027. Whoever succeeds her, we need the next commissioner to maintain the same uncompromising focus on the inequalities that shape children's lives - and to keep challenging the systems that allow them to persist. (Carlie Goldsmith, Head of Education Policy)
• Two new reports give new insight into how schools can build belonging amongst pupils. DfE research identifies 6 practice themes for mainstream schools looking to improve belonging, whilst a report of the first full year of London Violence Reduction Units investment in UNICEF UK’s Rights Respecting Schools programme finds improvements in belonging, alongside reductions in persistent absenteeism, suspensions, and exclusions. Together, these findings reinforce the importance of the quality and nature of the school environment. When Impetus asked young people, they told us they wanted connection not coercion, and more opportunities to exercise agency at school - things these reports agree drive belonging and support pupils to fulfil their full potential. (Carlie Goldsmith, Head of Education Policy)

Look ahead

• 26th October: We celebrate nine years of our Youth Jobs Gap research with a drinks reception. Do get in touch if you’d like to attend.
• 30th October: Calls for Evidence close for the London Assembly’s Inquiry into youth unemployment
• 28th October: The Autumn Budget, the first for Chancellor John Healey
• Mid-November: The latest estimate for the release of the final Milburn Review report.
• 19th November: DfE School Exclusion Reform – call for evidence deadline
• 26th November: Quarterly Statistics Release for Young People Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET)

And finally...

Energy bills went up again this month, with Ofgem’s cap now standing at £1,723 a year for a typical household, and forecasters expect a further rise of around 16% in January. For many families, that means hard choices about heating. For their children, it could mean missing more school and getting lower grades.

The evidence linking poor housing to educational outcomes is strong. Research from UCL and City St George’s, published last December, combined Millennium Cohort Study data with the National Pupil Database. It found that children in poor-quality housing, including damp, cold and overcrowded homes, miss an average of 15.5 more school days between ages 5 and 16 than their peers. That’s roughly three weeks of lost learning. They also score 2% to 5% lower in key English and maths exams.

Health is a big part of the story. Cold and mould trigger or worsen asthma, bronchitis and repeated chest infections, and these are major causes of absence. But the effects reach beyond illness. A study by CitizensUK in Newham found that when families heat only one room, children often have no warm, quiet place to do homework, read or revise. The stress of living in a cold home also adds to anxiety, low self-esteem and tiredness, which young people then bring into the classroom.

As always, these pressures don’t fall evenly. They hit hardest on young people already experiencing poverty, the same young people for whom persistent absence is already a challenge and the attainment gap is widest. As the price cap rises again in January and the government considers its response, the impact on education needs to be a key part of the debate. Children can’t learn if they’re not in school, and they struggle to learn when they’re cold. (Claire Leigh, Director of Public Affairs)