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11 April 2026

Author: James Kewin

Sixth-form colleges – not school sixth forms – are the route to social mobility

Education Datalab’s recent report on post-16 education has got it wrong, says James Kewin. It is a myth that the best way to improve the life chances of disadvantaged young people is to increase the number of school sixth forms. Last month, Education Datalab produced a report – handily summarised by Schools Week – entitled […]

Forget grammars! Sixth-form colleges are engines of social mobility

The government should consider how greater investment in sixth-form colleges could drive up standards, says James Kewin Sixth-form colleges share the government’s ambition to create an education system that works for everyone, not just the privileged few. But the plans unveiled earlier this month to achieve this are flawed and incomplete. Flawed because they overplay […]