Closing the early years opportunity gap for boys eligible for free school meals

Policy making for left-behind groups looks at how the government can use its missions-based approach to deliver better outcomes for groups who have experienced persistent disadvantage, across many policy areas and decades. Our first report in this series revealed which children are most at risk of not being ‘school ready’ - and what this means for how the government can best deliver its ambition to close the opportunity gap.

Thank you to the many early years experts and practitioners who have kindly reached out to support this work. Your experience and insights have been invaluable in shaping the next stage, which will examine how the Department for Education can support local areas to meet both the short-term target and narrow inequalities in the long-term. We will explore this through the lens of boys eligible for free school meals.

Why boys on free school meals?

• Our first report showed how boys on free school meals have among the lowest rates of school readiness: only 43% are ‘school ready’ compared to 60% of girls on free school meals. This disparity is larger than the overall gender gap.
• The attainment gap for boys and for children eligible for free school meals is well-documented. However, there has been little focus on the intersection of these two groups.
• Boys on free school meals are disproportionately likely to miss out on the benefits of early education due to low/no access to childcare, which is primarily intended to support working families.
• Poor home learning environments (HLE), exacerbated by factors such as parental mental health or conflict, present a significant barrier for this group.

We are also keen to explore how experiences within this group vary by factors such as place, ethnicity and identified special education needs and disabilities. In particular, we want to understand how outcomes for boys eligible for free school meals differ across these intersecting characteristics.

The opportunity mission is a chance to embed new approaches and get different parts of the system working better together to genuinely shift the dial for boys eligible for free school meals. This includes drawing on real-time insight from those closest to delivery, strategically coordinating across departments to provide joined-up support and course-correcting where needed to ensure that short-term targets do not undermine long-term progress in reducing inequality.

Getting this right has the potential to reap enormous gains. Early intervention is proven to deliver long-term benefits for boys from disadvantaged backgrounds - in education, wellbeing and employment - and provides clear value for money by reducing the need for more costly, reactive support later on.

We look forward to continuing to collaborate with early years experts and practitioners to move this agenda forward, including hearing from those with lived experience of these issues. By bringing together on-the-ground insights with our expertise on how government works, we aim to help shape the policy making process so that it delivers for groups who have been persistently underserved. The work will culminate in an insight paper that will be shared at a cross-government workshop bringing together senior officials from central government departments to co-develop recommendations for both immediate action and long-term reform.

Let us know if you would like to:

• Find out more about this project.
• Share evidence or insights about the opportunities and constraints local areas face in supporting boys on free school meals.
• Tell us about local innovations that are already making a difference.