Poor white families feel ‘abandoned’, says Wilshaw

White working-class families can feel “abandoned” and “forgotten” by the school system, Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw has said.

Poor, white communities needed to be served by better schools and school leaders, he said.

But parents also had a part to play, he said, and when he had been a head teacher he had often wished he could have fined “feckless” parents.

“It’s up to heads to be challenging to parents,” Sir Michael said.

And that included telling people they were “bad parents” and letting down their children.

Speaking at a Sutton Trust and Education Endowment Foundation summit in London, Sir Michael said the gap between rich and poor could not be narrowed without improvements in the results of disadvantaged white pupils.

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