Commenting on the new OECD PISA report, Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust and of the Education Endowment Foundation, said today:

“England’s stagnating position on PISA is very worrying, and requires strong action to improve classroom teaching and opportunities for disadvantaged students.

“As the OECD’s Andreas Schleicher has noted, gaps in standards within schools are three times more significant than gaps between schools. So we need a relentless focus on improving the quality of existing teachers within the classroom, through better appraisal, professional development and leadership.

“Sutton Trust research has shown that English schools could improve their low position in international league tables in Reading and Mathematics and become one of the top five education performers in the world within 10 years, if the performance of the country’s least effective teachers were brought up to the national average.

“We also need to do much more to narrow the gap between rich and poor students, where only half as many disadvantaged students beat the socio-economic odds as do so in the most successful economies in China and East Asia.”

1.       The Sutton Trust is a foundation dedicated to improving social mobility through education. It has published over 140 research studies and funded and evaluated hundreds of programmes for young people of all ages, from early years through to Access to the Professions.

2.       Click here to see the Sutton Trust research on teaching

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