Did the ‘London Effect’ survive the Covid-19 pandemic and what are the lessons for closing the disadvantaged attainment gap?

Sean Hayes, Retired Local Government Researcher and Durham University Honorary Fellow

Abstract

The seminar will explore the so-called ‘London effect,’ in which London’s schools improved rapidly, outperforming the rest of England between 2003 and 2013. It explores secondary school GCSE outcomes at age 16 and focuses on outcomes for disadvantaged students and the strategies that London local authorities and schools employed to achieve good outcomes for those pupils. It explores the performance data from 2023 to test if the ‘London effect’ has persisted beyond the global Covid-19 pandemic, which from 2020 to 2022 had a significantly adverse impact on students’ schooling nationally and internationally.

It also analyses the most recent GCSE data from 2025, to explore which schools in England and London have achieved the best outcomes for their disadvantaged students. This analysis of outcomes for disadvantaged students opens up the possibility for further research, which could explore what it is about those schools that achieve good outcomes for disadvantaged students.

Bio

Sean is a retired local government manager and educational researcher. He managed a team of 20 data analysts and researchers in Hounslow Local Authority. Although retired he remains active as an educational researcher and has carried out educational research and written research papers and book chapters. He worked in 6 London local authorities and has worked closely with schools since 1990. He was a secondary school governor from 2002 to 2021 and took on a new primary school governor role at the Big Education Trust in 2023.

Sean had an Honorary Norham Fellowship from the Education Department of Oxford University from 2017 to 2023. In 2024 he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from Durham University. He became active in BERA when he attended its conference in Bath in 1995 and was a member of BERA’s Executive Council from 2008 to 2023 and Treasurer for 8 years up to 2023.

Joining Online
This event will be accessible via Microsoft Teams. If you would like to attend online, please contact ed.research@durham.ac.uk to request the Teams link.