The “invisible minority” of poor children in provincial towns are now most at risk of being left behind at school, England’s chief inspector of schools Michael Wilshaw is to warn Thursday.
Wilshaw will call for a new team of “National Service Teachers” to help struggling schools, according to extracts of his speech.
“Today, many of the disadvantaged children performing least well in school can be found in leafy suburbs, market towns or seaside resorts,” he is expected to say in the London speech.
“Often they are spread thinly, as an ‘invisible minority’ across areas that are relatively affluent.
“These poor, unseen children can be found in mediocre schools the length and breadth of our country. They are labelled, buried in lower sets, consigned as often as not to indifferent teaching.
“They coast through education until, at the earliest opportunity, they sever their ties with it,” he will add.
He is expected to cite the turnaround of London, which used to be the “best-funded and worst-achieving in the country”, as an example of how failing schools can be improved.
Schools failing country's 'invisible minority'
