Purpose: Throughout the world children enter schools from different backgrounds, have different experiences of education, and leave with very different results.  In many countries the poorest children tend to lose out most starkly, achieve the worst results and attend the lowest performing schools (UNESCO, 2012).    Indeed, the influential Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) shows that an achievement gap between rich and poor pupils exists in all OECD countries (OECD, 2012).  This paper asks, what can be done to address these challenges?

There are countries that have made progress in reducing this gap whilst at the same time having high standards (Schleicher, 2010). The challenge for policy makers and practitioners is, therefore, to find ways of breaking the links between disadvantage and educational failure. 

This paper will provide an evaluative analysis of the first phase of ‘Schools Challenge Cymru’, a national effort to address this concern in Wales, in order to contribute to debates as to how to move forward.  The initiative, which began in early 2014, is informed by international evidence regarding how to bring about systemic change (e.g. Hargreaves & Shirley, 2012; Levin, 2008; Mourshed, Chijioke & Barber, 2010), including findings from the influential City Challenge programme in England (Ainscow, 2015a; Hutchings et al, 2012).  Drawing on this body of evidence, the Welsh initiative is guided by a series of propositions that form its strategic framework. 

Perspectives: Within the international research community there is a division of opinion regarding how to address educational equity.  Some argue that what is required is a school-focused approach, with better implementation of the knowledge base that has been created through school effectiveness and improvement research (Hopkins et al, 2005; Sammons, 2007); others suggest that such school-focused approaches can never address fundamental inequalities in societies that make it difficult for some young people to break with the restrictions imposed by their home circumstances (Dyson & Raffo, 2007). 

Such arguments point to the danger of separating the challenge of school improvement from a consideration of the impact of wider social and political factors.  This danger is referred to by those who recommend more holistic reforms that connect schools, communities, and external political and economic institutions (e.g. Anyon, 1997; Crowther et al, 2003; Levin, 2005; Lipman, 2004).  These authors conclude that it is insufficient to focus solely on the improvement of individual schools.  Rather, such efforts must be part of a larger overarching plan for system reform that must include all stakeholders, at the national, district, institutional and community levels.  An obvious possibility is to combine the two perspectives, linking attempts to change the internal conditions of schools with efforts to improve local areas.  This is the perspective that guides the Welsh initiative.

The context: Wales is a useful context for addressing educational equity.  Like many successful school systems (e.g. Alberta, Finland, Singapore), it is small.  Despite its size, however, the performance of its school system is relatively weak, particularly in terms of outcomes for learners from low-income families, as noted in a country review conducted by OECD (2014). 

Schools Challenge Cymru is intended to kick start the development of a strategy to address these concerns.  Working initially with 40 secondary schools serving disadvantaged communities and their local primary school partners, the project aims to have a major impact on the way that the Welsh education system works.  In particular, it sets out to make better use of resources, most importantly the expertise that exists within the system. 

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