When we talk about equity in education, we often think in terms of closing gaps, breaking cycles and ‘levelling the playing field’. But if we want to do more than just offer surface-level support to disadvantaged pupils, we must be braver. We must stop mistaking 'support' for 'simplification'. True equity doesn’t mean lowering the bar, it means helping every pupil reach it. That’s where challenge, high expectations and teaching to the top come in.
This stuff is personal to me. My mum was a child herself when she had me. I come from a background of poverty. I was a clever kid but nobody from my family had stayed in school post-16, let alone gone to university. My anger at the injustice of my circumstances and a feeling of being different from my peers in top set made me feel an immense anger, which manifested itself in rude and aggressive behaviour towards the people who were trying to help me most: my teachers. It would have been easy for school to have placed me in the ‘naughty sets.’ Luckily, amazing teachers saw my potential and persisted to challenge me. But too often, this isn’t the case.
The challenge gap is the real attainment gap
Research makes it clear: most disadvantaged students don’t catch up. According to Jerrim et al. (2018), ‘90% of students eligible for free school meals do not achieve the grades needed to study A-Levels.’ That statistic isn’t just a number. It’s a verdict on how often the system underestimates these students. Of course, not every student wants to do A-Levels but every child should have the option.
Too often, these learners are seen as a group whose ‘background’ sets the ceiling. But successful schools refuse to see pupils through deficit lenses. As Macleod et al. (2015) found, they see every pupil as an individual with unique potential, not just a postcode or a label.
Teaching to the top Is a matter of justice
Challenging all learners isn't about pushing struggling students to breaking point. It's about refusing to cap their potential. It means:
Giving them access to the best that has been thought, said, and written.
Using rich, complex texts.
Holding high expectations and providing the scaffolds to help meet them.
Teaching to the top is not elitist. Denying students access to powerful knowledge because we assume they "can’t handle it" is.
Knowledge or caring about exam outcomes isn’t trad. This makes me furious. What an immense amount of privilege people must have to imagine that knowledge and exams don’t matter. My exam results were my way out of poverty. I would not be sat here as a professor today if I had not done well in exams. Does this mean I hate creativity? I have a full bodysuit of tattoos and love fashion - of course not. We have to get away from these pathetic binaries and dichotomies in education. It is childish and simplistic.
Knowledge: The true equaliser
Knowledge doesn’t just unlock exam success. it shapes identity, voice and belonging. Just one look at a Daily Mail comments section, with the hideous views on immigration demonstrates that knowledge about the world and other cultures matters. Of course we must be mindful of whose knowledge counts.
When we talk about ‘cultural capital’, we must avoid a narrow, Eurocentric, or class-based view of what that means. A student whose home includes Rabindranath Tagore or Amartya Sen holds just as much cultural richness as one steeped in Shakespeare. The key is not to choose between cultures, but to ensure all students gain access to the powerful knowledge that opens doors. For years, I felt the only way I could do well was to abandon my working-class, Northern roots. I desperately tried to be more middle-class as I believed this was the only way to do well, to be successful. This has led to a lifetime of feeling I exist in a liminal space: I don’t feel a sense of belonging to my roots, or in the elite academic spaces I now find myself. Imposter syndrome has taken up permanent residence in my brain and it waits for its opportunity to pull the rug from under me. I tiptoe around my achievements, waiting to be found out. I am not alone. Every working-class academic or leader I speak to seems to also experience this.
Belonging and psychological safety: The foundation for challenge for kids like me
High challenge without high trust is a recipe for anxiety. As Amy Edmondson (1999) puts it, psychological safety is “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.” Students must feel seen, known and safe before they’ll risk engaging deeply.
That’s why relationships are not the 'soft' part of teaching, they're the platform. The best teachers don't just deliver content, they build connection, use humour, share passion and show up consistently. They approach every pupil as if they are already capable of excellence.
As the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) notes, “An inclusive school removes barriers to learning... and promotes high standards and the fulfilment of potential for all pupils.” Inclusion and high expectations are not at odds. They’re inseparable. A big part of this is also building a community with our families. My mum had a huge distrust of teachers, seeing them as authority figures to fear. This made it so difficult for me to simultaneously balance my home and school life. This is a tension many of our students will feel.
Working with families, not around them
Disadvantage does not equal disinterest. Families facing hardship often care deeply about their children’s futures, but may feel alienated from the education system. As the EEF reports, parental engagement has the potential to add four months of additional progress.
Schools must take the first step. Building trust, offering informal touchpoints early on (not just when things go wrong) and equipping parents with the tools to support learning at home are all great places to start. A text message, a newsletter, or a simple ‘thank you’ can shift the narrative.
So what can we do?
Equity in education isn’t about heroic fixes. It’s about deliberate, consistent action:
Challenge all students not just the high attainers. Scaffold up, don’t water down.
Teach to the top and offer the steps to help everyone reach it.
Curate inclusive, knowledge-rich curricula where every pupil sees themselves and stretches beyond themselves.
Build psychological safety. Make your classroom a place where all learners feel secure enough to try, fail and grow.
Work with parents with empathy, creativity and consistency.
Final thoughts: You've got to see it to be it
If students never see people like them succeeding, or are never treated as if they can, they begin to believe that success is for someone else. As a young person, I was desperate to become a Fleet Street journalist, but when I looked at the people doing my job, they’d all been to private school or had parents who were famous journalists or MPs themselves. We have quite rightly had a huge move towards making sure our curriculums contain texts that showcase the amazing work of black and global majority writers, we also need to do the same for working-class artists and writers. Especially texts that showcase their immense grit and determination, not a deficit narrative.
When we teach to the top, we’re not just aiming for grades. We’re showing our students they belong in spaces of excellence. That they deserve access to powerful knowledge. That their futures are worth investing in.
Equity isn’t about equality of input, it’s about fairness of outcome. That starts with challenge, connection and the unwavering belief that all our pupils can succeed.
Inspiring piece! Such a valid call out on the privilege to dismiss exams. I have sat with scholarship students and helped them prepare for totally different trajectories dependent on their exam results. They are a game changer for so many.
Strongly agree - in particular about a class based diversity of voices. I’d add a geographical diversity - I think it matters hugely to children to see places they recognise in what they read.