GCSE results day - the yearly reminder of the stark inequality in the education system. Here's Darren McGarvey nailing it, from episode 1 of our podcast series. classdivide.co.uk/podcast

Glad to see call for social class to be included in diversity efforts in TV industry. Class remains the missing dimension of diversity among so many employers (including the BBC) despite barriers & biases limiting those from 'lower' socioeconomic origins. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

"There should be no greater priority for a Labour government than closing the socioeconomic attainment gap in education" theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Dr Jill Berry Routledge Books Totally agree. Even more powerful when the stories come not just from ‘experts’, ie, they come from the people at the heart of the story. I tried really hard to do this here: shows.acast.com/class-divide/e… for Class Divide

"Many private schools have ditched GCSEs – which state schools have to follow – in preference for the easier International GCSEs. These IGCSEs allow students to do coursework – something binned in the state system nearly a decade ago – and the questions, in general, are less

We’ve been trying to reduce the cost of school uniforms with some local schools for a while. We’ll continue to work on this, as parents tell us they are really struggling to buy what they consider to be unnecessary branded items. theguardian.com/education/arti…

This is definitely a step in the right direction. But, the implementation of this is key and context is everything. Factors like number of FSM children should be taken into account in the new report cards. Ie if a school doesn’t have the town or city average of FSM children, it

theguardian.com/money/article/…

Dr Jenny Thatcher A recurring theme in discourse around poverty / social mobility = costs that ordinary people can't afford & other people are too affluent to even notice. Unfortunately the latter group dominate decision-making & influencing roles, so those costs don't get addressed.

"Local Authorities with high levels of segregation have larger attainment gaps between disadvantaged and non- disadvantaged pupils. Areas with the highest segregation have gaps in the rate of passes in English and maths 27% higher than areas with low segregation."

This is such an important piece of work that adds even more evidence for the changes we've been pushing for.

"Local authorities with high levels of segregation have larger attainment gaps in GCSE grades between their least and most disadvantaged pupils."

Here’s a flashback to last year, when we found out Brighton & Hove council were consulting on a big change to admissions to make the school system less segregated. The full podcast episode goes into a lot more detail about why this is so important and is available on all podcast

"Working-class parents do not see film and TV as viable career for their children". James Graham is right, but it's not only the TV industry that needs to treat class in the same way as other characteristics like race and sexuality, it's every part of life. Read more:

💬 "Breaking this cycle by improving the social mix across schools would produce a healthier system, and help to break the link between school performance and spiralling house prices." Carl Cullinane on our new school admissions research in Tes ⤵️ tes.com/magazine/analy…

🗣️ "Across society, there is a real worry that people's accents are being discriminated against." Our research has found that accent bias still exists in Britain, with many people saying they've been mocked at work because of how they speak. A short breakdown of our work 👇📺