A new government always brings a frisson of excitement, even in a country where government churn has become the norm in recent years. I’m undoubtedly biased, but the education brief is one which any new minister should see as one of the best opportunities there is to make a tangible, long-term difference to society. But that excitement is inevitably tempered by the scale of the challenges facing the new prime minister and education secretary as they take up their new posts. The new government’s in-tray includes the need to reform a SEND system widely judged to be broken and financially unsustainable, a post-16 settlement Burnham himself has singled out for reconstruction, a curriculum and assessment overhaul to implement (or revisit?) and a deepening financial crisis in higher education. Yet the Burnham project’s promise is a rejection of the politics of “no” – of identifying flaws without offering fixes. If it is to be the “circuit breaker” he has promised, the new government’s education policy should coalesce around one organising principle from which everything else in that in-tray runs downstream: the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers. Keep the ambition Burnham’s cabinet has inherited an ambitious commitment. This year’s every child achieving and thriving white paper set the target of halving the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers by the time the current generation leaves secondary school. It is a pledge the new administration cannot quietly walk away from, even if they wanted to. The new prime minister’s immediate instincts are sound. Any serious politics oriented towards the future must rebalance how we value technical and vocational routes, ending, as he puts it, a system “configured entirely around the university route”. But the disadvantage gap does not open at sixteen. It opens in the earliest years, and it is widening. The Education Policy Institute’s annual report has tracked the gap for a decade. Until this year the picture was one of slow improvement, thrown off course by the pandemic, then starting to recover. This year the progress made after the pandemic has stalled or gone into reverse at every stage of a child’s education. The gaps remain significantly wider than before the pandemic across the board, and the starkest deterioration is at the very beginning. In 2019, five-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds were, on average, just over four months behind their more advantaged peers. Now they’re almost five months behind. Left unchecked, the gap only widens: 10 months by the end of primary school, a massive 19 months by GCSEs. Three priorities The answer cannot be a reset, or a quiet downgrading of ambition to match the numbers. It has to be an honest interrogation of whether current structures and funding are anywhere near enough to deliver what has been promised – above all for the children who have fallen furthest behind. Three priorities would signal an intention to act now, not later. First, the early years. Working families are entitled to 30 hours of funded early education, but families where parents are out of work can access only half of this. The government should equalise this entitlement, and ensure all settings provide a universally high-quality education. Second, SEND. Reforming the system for children with special educational needs is crucial in its own right and to close the gap. That reform now sits with Powell, alongside the children’s social care changes she inherits. The government must invest in the workforce that identifies and supports these children: more educational psychologists, more speech and language therapists, faster access to children’s mental health services, and earlier, proactive identification rather than diagnosis at crisis point. Third, 16 to 19. The government should introduce a student premium: targeted funding for disadvantaged young people, matching the support already given to younger children. Burnham’s vision for a revitalised vocational and technical route will only work if schools and colleges have the resources to deliver it. These are not three items competing for space in a crowded in-tray. Equalising the early years entitlement, building the workforce that identifies need early, and funding disadvantaged students through to nineteen are one commitment, held across a childhood. Burnham can be the prime minister who turns the tide on the disadvantage gap, and Powell the education secretary who delivers it – but only if they begin where the gap does, in the earliest years, and hold firm at every stage that follows.