Teacher aspirations and implicit bias: Driving student success or failure?
Written by: Sarah Wilkinson-Crute
7 min read
SARAH WILKINSON-CRUTE, ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL, MARITIME ACADEMY, UK
The achievement gap between students from disadvantaged backgrounds and their more privileged peers remains a persistent challenge in education. Disadvantage is not just monetary; it also involves considering limited social networks, a lack of valued skills and having little control over decisions that affect your future (Crenna-Jennings, 2018). Despite decades of policy efforts and overall rising GCSE attainment, students from disadvantaged backgrounds, including those receiving free school meals (FSM), remain academically behind their peers (Farquharson et al., 2022). Furthermore, the schools regulator Ofsted’s approach to evaluating the curriculum of schools includes ‘the extent to which all pupils, particularly disadvantaged, make progress in that they know more, remember more and are able to do more’ (Ofsted, 2024). This has become known as a ‘knowledge-rich curriculum’ and is now a popular choice for man
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