Another year, another educational inquiry, another round of soul-searching about the underachievement of white working-class pupils. This time, senior education figures have concluded that high-performing schools should be compelled to take more white working-class pupils, citing the fact that some grammar schools have only three per cent of children on free school meals compared to about 26 per cent across England.
White working-class pupils underachieve in spite of other groups’ progress, not because of it
It is true that middle-class families and ethnic minorities are disproportionately over-represented in grammar schools. One school in north London, which had nearly 3,000 applicants for its 104 places, took only one white British child in 2024-2025. A nearby school had only two white British pupils in a year group of almost 200. This has been the case for some time: a 2016 report by The Sutton Trust found that disadvantaged Indian pupils were four times more likely than disadvantaged white British pupils to attend a grammar school. Disadvantaged Chinese pupils were 15 times more likely to do so.
Yet this is no conspiracy by the educational establishment; there is no DEI foul-play here or anti-white discrimination. White working-class pupils underachieve in spite of other groups’ progress, not because of it. No, the reason why so few white working-class students go to grammar schools is the same reason why 40 per cent of white children on free school meals are persistently absent, or only a third achieve a pass in English and Maths GCSE: failures of parenting.
To put it simply, the ethnic make-up of top-performing schools is a reflection of the academic aspirations of different parents, and the fact that some cultures value education and the importance of exam results more than others.
Blaming educational inequalities on poverty does not explain why 68 per cent of Bangladeshi boys and 82 per cent of Chinese boys on free school meals pass GCSE Maths and English, both above the national average.
Blaming educational inequalities on race does not explain why Black African children tend to perform much more highly than Black Caribbean students, for example.
Blaming educational inequalities on schools does not explain why less than half of white working-class five-year-olds are at the expected standard of development compared with three quarters of middle-class children, a disparity cemented before they even start Reception.
It is easy to cite working-class success stories like Michaela Community School or Brampton Manor Academy, but look at the ethnic make-up of these schools: at Michaela over 90 per cent of pupils are non-White British and half are Muslim, while only two per cent of students at Brampton are White British. These schools are exemplars of inspirational leadership and teaching, but also high expectations outside of the classroom as much as within.
If white working-class children are failed then these failures start at home. Lynsey Hanley’s biography Respectable: The Experience of Class pithily condenses the problem into three key factors: lack of respect, lack of hope and lack of trying. At the heart of their children’s disengagement from school is the example set by parents who place little value on education and the importance of work.
Even the term working-class is misleading: it ought to describe people who rely primarily on hourly wages, often in jobs that require physical or routine labour. Yet most children on Free School Meals come from families on state benefits, many of whom will be unemployed and economically inactive. It’s worthwhile noting that White British families receive government expenditure at a higher rate than any other group: 54 per cent of white British families receive some form of state support, and the money given to them accounts for more than three quarters of the ever-expanding Universal Credit budget.
White working-class students are also much more likely to come from unstable family dynamics. According to research by the Centre for Social Justice, growing up in a stable two-parent home is one of the strongest predictors of positive educational outcomes, and yet just two in ten poor white children live with married parents today, compared to almost six in ten among poor children in non-white families.
The data also finds that the chances of lone parent families experiencing long term worklesssness is almost one in three, but in a couple family that probability falls to just one in fifty. Is it any surprise therefore that British Indian kids do so well in school, regardless of socio-economic background, when 87 per cent come from married families?
Unless we address the social, familial factors that have led to this culture of low expectations for white-working class pupils, then nothing will change. Tinkering with the secondary school curriculum is too late: before they even start Reception, pupils from poorer families will have heard 30 million fewer words than other children their age. Other proposed structural changes like free transport for under-21s will not be enough to compensate for the multigenerational apathy which means that white working-class pupils no longer believe that doing well in school leads to opportunity, financial security and a good life. Stop blaming schools; change needs to start at home.
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