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I have had the privilege, over the course of my career, of working in many schools serving communities facing enormous disadvantage.

I have seen schools transformed, pupils exceed every expectation placed upon them, and teachers achieve extraordinary things in circumstances that many would regard as impossible.

That experience is one of the reasons why I was pleased to join the board of the last summer.

Inquiry into white working-class outcomes

It brought together people with very different backgrounds and perspectives, but a shared determination to understand why, despite decades of reform and investment, outcomes for too many white working-class children have remained so stubbornly poor.

I have always been fascinated by disadvantage and school improvement. Like many school leaders, I have never doubted the commitment of teachers or the aspirations of the families they serve.

What this Inquiry gave me was the opportunity to step back from the day-to-day pressures of leading schools and look across the education system as a whole.

The missing middle

Over the course of the inquiry, which reports today, one thing became increasingly clear. We devote a great deal of attention to how children start school.

Quite rightly, we have invested heavily in the early years and in helping children learn to read. We also devote significant attention to GCSEs because we know how important those qualifications are in shaping access to future opportunities.

But I have come away even more convinced that we have not given enough attention to what happens in between.

Anyone who has led a secondary school knows how formative the early secondary years are. By the time students reach Year 10, many of the factors that influence their GCSE outcomes are well established.

Confidence has declined, attendance has become less consistent, and some students have stopped believing school is for people like them. Some struggle to see how what they are learning is relevant to the lives they hope to lead.

Again and again, we heard from children, parents and teachers that something changes during those early secondary years.

Parents described feeling far less connected to school than they had been in primary. Young people spoke about the move to secondary school being much more difficult than they had expected. Teachers told us about students increasingly disengaging as they move through secondary school.

How we should respond

None of those observations felt unfamiliar to me. What struck me was how consistently they emerged, wherever we were in the country and whoever we spoke to.

They reinforced my belief that if we are serious about improving outcomes for white working-class pupils, we cannot wait until Year 10 to discover that something has gone wrong.

That, for me, is why key stage 3 deserves much greater attention than it currently receives.

We should spend Years 7 to 9 helping students to build confidence with what they are learning, giving them opportunities for success, and enabling them to explore areas they are curious about.

We should also be much more ambitious about how we understand students’ progress during these years. I have long believed that there is a stronger case for assessment during KS3, because good assessment, used well, enables teachers and parents to identify problems and act on them.

We know a great deal about children’s progress at the end of primary school and again at the end of KS4, but we know much less about what is happening during the period when many of these students disengage from education.

The inquiry also strengthened my belief that we should resist the temptation to see this as a debate about academic standards versus relevance. It is not. Every child deserves access to a rich, ambitious academic curriculum.

But schools also have a responsibility to help young people to understand why what they are learning matters, how it links to the world beyond school and the different futures it can help them build.

Academic learning and meaningful vocational and technical pathways should complement one another, not compete.

What works - and why it can be repeated

Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of the inquiry was the time spent in schools and colleges already achieving strong outcomes for white working-class pupils.

There was no single programme or secret formula. What united them was excellent teaching, strong leadership, real care for relationships, high expectations and an unwavering belief that every child could succeed.

They refused to accept that background should determine destiny.

Quick fixes and long-term planning

The inquiry sets out a long-term agenda for change. Some of its recommendations could be implemented relatively quickly.

Others will require sustained investment, structural reform and political commitment over many years. That seems to me to be an honest reflection of the challenge we face. Problems that have developed over generations will not be solved in a single Parliament.

But I hope one message from this inquiry will resonate across the education sector.

We know far more now than we once did about when and why too many white working-class young pupils disengage from education. We should not accept this as inevitable, nor should we wait until GCSE results to realise that we have lost them.

If we give KS3 the attention it deserves, we have a far greater chance of ensuring that they leave school with confidence, qualifications and genuine optimism about the future.

Dame Sally Coates is head of Holland Park School and sat on the board of the Independent Inquiry into White Working Class Educational Outcomes

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