Transitional arrangements brought in to ease the roll out of the Universal Credit system will make it harder to ascertain if the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers is narrowing.
These transitional arrangements are affecting the composition of the disadvantaged group and will therefore make it increasingly difficult to understand how the disadvantage attainment gap is changing from 2024 onwards.
Furthermore, the arrangements, originally introduced in 2018, have recently been extended by two years to March 2025. This means their impact on measuring the gap will be felt for even longer.
Following a National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) report in 2022, which investigated the changing landscape of pupil disadvantage, NFER hosted a roundtable of experts to discuss the implications of the arrangements and possible policy solutions. NFER has produced a new report to highlight key insights from the roundtable discussion.
