The Sutton Trust

Room to Grow: School-based nursery places and the disadvantage gap - The Sutton Trust We are pleased to announce we’ve been awarded funding from Nuffield Foundation together with the Social Market Foundation to carry out new research on school-based nurseries.

If you work in a setting or know of any settings that would be willing to talk to us, contact us via email:

📩 research@suttontrust.com

Find out more about the project 👇

www.suttontrust.com/room-to-grow...

📃 Our upcoming research with @smfthinktank.bsky.social, funded by @nuffieldfoundation.org, will look at the quality and effectiveness of school-based nurseries.

We're looking for case studies of good practice - focusing on partnerships serving a high proportion of disadvantaged or SEND children.

It was brilliant to host a drop in yesterday with the @suttontrust.bsky.social and @the93percentclub.bsky.social on "Smashing the Class Ceiling" with the campaign to make social class a protected characteristic within the Equality Act 2010.
Big thank you to everyone who attended. The work continues!

My social mobility journey: Navigating without a map - The Sutton Trust Our alum, Bethany, shares important insights from her social mobility journey.

🗣️ "Social mobility isn’t just about moving up. It’s about not moving alone. It’s about opening the door behind you once you’ve stepped through."

Learnings from a socially mobile young person 👇

🚨 Do you teach any young people who you think might love to study in the US? Tell them to apply to The Sutton Trust Fulbright US Programme! us.suttontrust.com

My social mobility journey: Navigating without a map - The Sutton Trust Our alum, Bethany, shares important insights from her social mobility journey.

💬 "People talk about social mobility like it’s a ladder, but I’ve always thought it’s more like trying to read a map in a language you haven’t been taught."

Our alum, Bethany, candidly shares the lessons she's learned through her social mobility journey ⤵️

Brighton & Hove receives gold Sutton Trust Fair School Admissions Award Brighton & Hove City Council has been granted the Sutton Trust Fair School Admissions Award at gold level.

🥇 We've given @BrightonHoveCC the Fair School Admissions Award at gold level!

The award recognises efforts to create greater equality of opportunity through fairer school admissions policies 👏

LSE’s widening participation programmes change lives, say participants LSE’s Widening Participation team run two Pathways programmes with the Sutton Trust for state school pupils in years 12-13 aiming for careers in law or finance.

🚀 Our programmes can be transformational experiences for young people, helping them to make more informed decisions about their future pathways.

Read about the powerful impact of our Pathways programmes with the London School of Economics & Political Science ⤵️

Sutton Trust response to the Autumn Budget 2025 - The Sutton Trust Our take on this year's Budget.

We’ve responded to the key education-related announcement in this Budget.

Head to our website to see our full response on the various measures ⤵️

www.suttontrust.com/news-opinion...

On apprenticeships, today’s announcement to make SME’s apprenticeships training free for under 25s is a welcome step, as is increasing the minimum wage for apprentices.

More needs to be done to rebalance apprenticeship opportunities, which remain skewed towards older workers 👎

Action is still needed to equalise access to early education & childcare support.

Kids from the poorest homes are currently unable to access the full 30 hour funded childcare entitlement, because their parents don’t earn enough.

Today was a missed opportunity to rectify that.

We're delighted that the two-child benefit cap will be scrapped 👏

We recently signed a @cpaguk.bsky.social letter calling for this alongside 100+ organisations.

It will help more families meet their basic needs, and will reduce child poverty, which has a big impact on learning outcomes.

It's disappointing to see no concrete measures to close the attainment gap between richer and poorer pupils.

Rebalancing the national funding formula, and restoring the Pupil Premium to previous levels (plus extending it cover 16-19 year olds) would've been good steps to take.

💰Budget 2026 💰

The Government has announced that the two-child benefit cap will be abolished – a welcome move which will have a major impact on tackling poverty.

But more could have been done on education more broadly in this Budget.

Read our full analysis ⤵️🧵 @nickharrison73.bsky.social

Co-op announces £70m plans to create thousands of apprenticeships The retail giant said it was committed to establishing 7,000 apprenticeships by 2030.

👏 Great to see the Co-Op's Levy Share unlocking opportunities for high-quality apprenticeships!

Apprenticeships can be powerful vehicles for social mobility.

It's vital that these opportunities are opened up to those who could benefit from them the most.

My social mobility journey: Navigating without a map - The Sutton Trust Our alum, Bethany, shares important insights from her social mobility journey.

✍️ "University was never a guarantee. I got in with hard work, luck, and the kind of tenacity you only learn when you don’t have a safety net."

Our Alumni Leadership Board member, Bethany, writes about her social mobility journey in our latest blog ⤵️

www.suttontrust.com/news-opinion...

Inclusion through admissions: How a community brought about change in Brighton and Hove - The Sutton Trust Grassroots efforts to create fairer school admissions for all pupils in Brighton and Hove.

✍️ "In many places across the country, the social make-up of a school reflects the affluence of its postcode."

@DivideClass have successfully campaigned for groundbreaking changes to school admissions in Brighton.

Read about their achievements ⤵️

Budget lookahead – 6 ways the Chancellor could tackle inequality in education - The Sutton Trust Outlining our key priorities for the Government ahead of the Autumn Budget.

💬 "Is the Government still committed to its Mission to ‘Break down barriers to opportunity’? Next week’s Budget Statement might provide the clearest clue yet."

Looking at policies that could combat educational inequality ahead of the Autumn Budget ⤵️

Higher Education Summit 2025, Nov 19th This event is being organised to take place on Wednesday 19 November 2025 following research being commissioned by the Sutton Trust focusing on the role of higher education in social mobility internat...

If you want to watch any of the sessions that took place, check out the recording of our livestream ⬇️

eventee.com/e/higher-edu...

We had multiple panels throughout the event, as well as breakout sessions, with a range of expert panellists discussing specific topics related to higher education and answering questions from attendees!

Our three keynote speakers included the Minister for Skills Jacqui Smith, former Education Secretary Damian Hinds (who was interviewed by BBC Education Editor @branwenjeffreys.bsky.social and the Founding Co-Director of Opportunity Insights John Friedman.

It was a fantastic day, kicked off with opening remarks from @carnegiecorp.bsky.social President Dame Louise Richardson and a panel chaired by our CEO @nickharrison73.bsky.social 🗣️

Rachel Brooks and Golo Henseke, the researchers who produced our report, also gave a presentation on the findings.

Thank you to everyone who attended our Higher Education Summit with @carnegiecorp.bsky.social on Wednesday!

The event focused on our latest research exploring the relationship between higher education and social mobility in 20 different countries around the world 🗺️

Elitist Britain 2025 This website requires Javascript for some parts to function properly. Your experience may vary.

🏏 The Ashes are starting tonight, but who gets to represent England on the biggest stage?

We've found that cricket is the most elitist sport in Britain, with 59% of the men’s England cricket squad being privately educated, up from 43% in 2019 👇

elitistbritain.suttontrust.com

Focus on disadvantaged boys to hit school-ready target, DfE told Successive governments have failed to tackle entrenched inequalities in early years outcomes for boys from low-income backgrounds, IfG report warns

Very important new report from @instituteforgovernment.org.uk highlighting the challenges facing boys from low-income families.

The research unpacks the reasons why they fall so far behind, and reiterates the need for action to tackle gaps in outcomes for this group ⤵️

www.tes.com/magazine/new...

Budget lookahead – 6 ways the Chancellor could tackle inequality in education - The Sutton Trust Outlining our key priorities for the Government ahead of the Autumn Budget.

Which policies should the Government focus on to tackle educational inequality?🔎

Ahead of next week's Budget, our Head of Comms and Public Affairs, @rockylorusso.bsky.social outlines the action the Government could take to level the playing field in education ⤵️

www.suttontrust.com/news-opinion...

📺 You can watch a livestream of the event from around 8:45AM tomorrow, using this link ⬇️

eventee.com/e/higher-edu...

A range of expert attendees from various sectors are set to join us, alongside our keynote speakers: the Minister for Skills Baroness Smith of Malvern, the former Education Secretary @damianhinds.bsky.social, and Economist and Founding Co-Director of @oppinsights.bsky.social John Friedman 🗣️

The third panel will look at the ‘health’ of the HE sector in the US, outlining the state of play on opportunity and social mobility.

A second panel discussion, chaired by our Director of Programmes, Katy Hampshire, will focus on international learnings and best practice on widening participation.