The raft of challenges facing Richmond Hill School made narrowing the gap seem like an outrageous challenge. However, by tackling the barriers that prevent pupils from being ready to learn, among other strategies, the school is making huge strides. Daniel Sobel explains

I read yet another news article about a large academy chain that fails its students and in particular “those from poor homes”. Unfortunately, there have been many articles like this in recent times. I conjecture that it is because planning over a group of schools tends to deal with the symptoms and not the causes of the attainment gap.

Sometimes, when you throw more maths at a cohort of boys who are significantly below their attainment levels, they don’t respond positively because it doesn’t necessarily address the fact that they may have language acquisition difficulties and the maths language is complex. Or that they have parents who decry maths at home as a “waste of time” because of their own difficult experiences when they were young.

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