Education inequality must look beyond the school gate.

This article first appeared as part of the CSJ leader column series

Disadvantage and poverty are increasingly a factor of where you grow up in Britain.

The Social Mobility Commission released its fifth State of the Nation report in November last year which found a ‘striking geographical divide’ between the wealthy South East and poorer, less socially mobile, parts of the North and South West. The CSJ’s Great British Breakthrough report found labour productivity in London at £42,666 per year whereas in the North East it was just £18,216.

The Northern Powerhouse Partnership (NPP) further demonstrated this disparity this week by releasing a report showing educational attainment in the North lagging significantly behind the South. Northern pupils make a third of a grade less progress overall at 16 and half a grade in mathematics less on average than students in London.

The report also noted that 25 per cent of Northern schools are judged by Ofsted to be inadequate or requiring improvement. The NPPs recommendations for correcting this gap in attainment are far-reaching and comprehensive. They call for an additional £300 million to be invested in Early Years Education and an increase in the pupil premium to support pupils in disadvantaged communities.

They want an expansion of the Opportunity Area programme and a commitment from employers in the North to connect with local students and offer them careers advice and work experience opportunities.

These are admirable aims, of which the CSJ is supportive. But education in the North should not be generalised. There is significant variation in outcomes for students in neighbouring areas. 70 per cent of 11-year olds in Warrington achieve the expected standard in reading, grammar, punctuation, spelling and mathematics whereas in Doncaster it is just 54 per cent, and while 62.4 per cent of Trafford pupils achieved a 9–5 pass grade in English and Maths GCSE, only 24.4 per cent of students in Knowsley achieved the same standard.

The marginal return to more financial investment will continue to diminish unless we tackle some of the less tangible barriers to progression.

It is clear from the NPP report that the local community has a big impact on a student’s engagement at school and their level of attainment. Public policy must therefore focus on tackling the aspiration gap and severe levels of social breakdown that occur in the deprived communities, scattered across the North of England.

This means supporting stable families and reducing the number of workless households. Local organisations must help working class boys (falling further behind girls in attainment than ever before) to develop both soft skills in communication, time management, project management, and team leadership that will be more valuable in an economy where an increasing number of traditional blue-collar jobs are at risk of automation.

Lastly, we need a strategy to tackle the epidemic of synthetic drug use in poor towns and communities.

Increases in the pupil premium and investment in school leadership are strong steps towards improving the quality of state education provision in the North of England.

But unless we address what happens outside the school gates, that investment may prove futile.