Last year, our trustee Geoff Lane attended the Annual General Meeting of Richmond Parish Lands Charity (RPLC), an independent charitable foundation. The event was particularly memorable because he heard the Head of Richmond Park Academy, James Whelan, speak. As one of our school partners, we therefore decided to record a dialogue between James and our Head of London, Harriet Chater. James and Harriet reflect on their own experiences of social mobility, both personally and professionally, and how coaching can play a key role in improving it nationally. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

Harriet: What motivated you to go into education as a career?

James: When I was a teenager my dad took over a company and we became more wealthy than the average household. It was then that I realised how there are two different sides to life: one of not being wealthy and the other of being wealthy. I saw how the process for my life experience was unfair and I understood how being richer was so much easier. It stuck with me. During my time as a student at the University of Sheffield, I went to a lecture about being a teacher and it worked for me.

I first worked in an inner city school in Sheffield and for me, schools appeared to be one of the only vehicles that could alleviate some of that unfairness that I had noticed so much of when I was younger. Education was one of the few tools where you could level up that disparity in some way.

I saw schools as places that could be useful and I wanted to be a part of that. I have always worked in disadvantaged areas, firstly in Sheffield, then I moved to Peckham in London, where over 50% of the students qualified for free school meals. Then I moved to Mitcham and now I’m at Richmond Park Academy which is very comprehensive; there are middle-class students here but it also takes in consistently above the national average of disadvantaged students.

Everyone is in the school together and in every shape, and I like it like that - everyone’s put in together and everyone is treated, as best we can, the same. That is why I got into teaching and it’s a value that I hold to myself in terms of making things as fair as we can.

Harriet: I went to a state school myself in Durham. It was unusual because there is a university there so you had the children of academics in Durham, but also you had the children growing up in the former pit villages, so in school, you still knew roughly what people would do in life based on their postcodes. This is a bit of a generalisation, but people from DH1 would go to university and people from DH6 often wouldn’t.

James: Those stereotypes undoubtedly still exist and I suppose if you can have schools that incorporate students from everywhere, then hopefully you can change the rhetoric. They can go on to do anything no matter where they are from.

Harriet: Yes, the attitude that ‘we’re all in this together,’ really helps.

James: I don't think the difference between state and private schools is academic anymore. Our results won’t be too far off that of private schools and there are many state schools with as equally good academic results as private schools. But you can never compete with the other opportunities available: the access to sports, music, the arts and the ready-made networks of certain individuals and the opportunities that stem from those networks.

Harriet: Our work at CoachBright centres around improving social mobility. Why do you think that sort of work is so important?

James: It’s unfair that earnings and career opportunities are dictated by wealth at birth, so anything that alleviates that unfairness is a good thing. I don't think you can ever do enough and I imagine social mobility became worse due to COVID-19. So far it is acknowledged by many measures that any redistribution of wealth or opportunities to students from a disadvantaged background has had zero effect in terms of wealth accumulation.

As a whole in this country, the package isn’t working so the inequality gap is getting bigger and bigger. It’s alarming that we haven’t been able to address that. All you have to do is look at what the most disadvantaged people don’t have, and then you do whatever you can to give it to them.

Harriet: You recently spoke at the RPLC event and shared the story of two young people from very different backgrounds which brought home, very powerfully, what we are discussing here.

James: I gave examples of two students whom I based on reality but altered their identity. What many people don't understand is that the effects of disadvantage are so damaging on a cumulative basis, week after week, month after month and year after year. So I shared a week in the life of a disadvantaged student and a week in the life of a student with no deprivation, and the stories illustrated how different their lives were and the sort of damage that creates.

I got people to imagine what that feels like to a young person receiving free school meals after five years of being in school and I think people were then able to have more of an understanding of what that reality is like.

Imagine if a young person simply has to share a laptop. They’re expected to do their homework on it but they have to share it with siblings and the internet isn't very good and keeps cutting out. The long-term impact of consistently not being able to do as much homework as others is massive; they're viewed differently within the school by teachers and other students, for not getting homework in when it’s due. This then reflects on how many detentions they will have, which has a knock-on effect on other activities they could be doing. It’ll influence how many school trips they get to go on to places they may not have visited before and it’ll impact their attitude towards school, for being punished for something they couldn't help. Academically they will also suffer because they don't have the opportunity to do as much of the work that is easy for others to get done.

That’s just one example - having to share a laptop. Now add other factors in. How about if your parents work nights, and you have to cook dinner for younger siblings and get yourself up in the mornings? What if you manage to avoid detention by getting your homework in on time, only to realise that you don’t have the extra money needed to go on the school trip?

Or what if you take longer to get to school because you have to walk in every day? What if you always have to borrow a uniform, because you cannot afford to buy your own? All of these things together create a package of difficulties compared to someone who has never had to think about any of that.

Harriet: My first role after leaving university was with CoachBright as a Programme Officer and I went into schools five times a week. My first school was in Hounslow and I remember someone commenting on how it was getting dark outside. My knee-jerk response was, ‘Oh winter is coming’. One of the girls I was with looked out and said, ‘I’m not meant to be outside my estate once it’s dark.’

I asked her why and she said, ‘Someone was killed outside my brother’s bedroom two nights ago.’ And then casually commented, ‘It’s fine though, my room’s at the back so I didn’t hear anything and my brother’s a deep sleeper.’

She was 13 years old, and this was her life and it was normal. Something as basic as the sky growing dark in the evening meant something so different to me compared to what it represented for her.

I went to a state school and I was friends with lots of different young people who were living on much lower household incomes than me, but still, that level of inner-city poverty in London and the systemic barriers to social mobility that go with that was not something I knew about.

James: When I moved to Peckham there was a side to school life there that I don't think I've ever experienced and wouldn't want to. It was frightening how young adults were being exposed to such violence, danger and criminality at such a young age and the resulting trauma they had to cope with from that exposure.

Harriet: Yes, and what that level of disadvantage will teach a young person about daily life outside of school and outside of trying to get school work done. What is a young person thinking about and what are their priorities going to be? It’s not going to be, ‘Oh, I’ll do my homework now and then take a break.’ They’re thinking, ‘How can I get home safely today and what will I be able to eat?’

What do you think are the main barriers to improving social mobility?

James: In schools, it’s the difficulty that disadvantaged young people have in being encouraged to define and establish their interests, hobbies and networking opportunities, which their more affluent peers automatically have access to. That is a powerful thing. The fact that certain groups of people all tend to have been to the same events and go on holidays to the same kind of places. They know who certain people are and how to play tennis and they can play a musical instrument. Having that access and taking it for granted and knowing how to speak a certain way, and how to act in certain situations, is a barrier that is nearly impossible for a school to overcome alone.

Academically we can level the playing field but it’s not enough. If you’re going into your first job, into a company like Deloitte, and in your interview, you’ve been skiing in the same chalet as your interviewer and your parents have already sorted your work experience because their best friend is a partner there, it’s so advantageous - but it’s a million miles away if you’re not from the same background. That is the biggest barrier.

The only way you can overcome that is by giving university access to and employing people with very different criteria. So if you are from a highly deprived council estate you can still go to Cambridge, and you do something radical like that. You can change cohorts. I don’t know what that would look like or how it would trickle down over time but you’d have to do something extreme like that to completely change up what is a very established system.

Harriet: Being interviewed for a job, and simply having the ability to mirror the accent, echo the interests of the interviewer, and read a few things that they might have, is a level of privilege that so many young people don’t have. Being able to perform in a certain way and to present that at an interview. Even having the right shoes is a cost that many people don’t have.

James: It takes a strong job interviewer to see past that, to give someone a chance based on their character rather than accent or the way someone is dressed or their hobbies. I don’t know how to teach that or even if I’d want to. You’re playing a game.

Harriet: If you teach that then I guess you’re reinforcing that.

James: I admit I’m subconsciously biased toward those familiar to me, who look and dress and have the same interests as me. But it’s about being aware of that and challenging it as much as possible. That’s why the broadness of teams is important in employment and any opportunities that you’re giving people.

Many people don’t understand how privileged one is to be able to work hard and to feel supported to do that, and to be supported if and when one makes a mistake. All these things are not skills that you choose to have, they are privileges. You are born into a space where you can activate these personality traits. The old argument of, ‘I worked hard so I should keep everything I get’, isn’t right - you are privileged to be in a position where you can work hard - as so many people don’t know how to do that.

So, social mobility is something I’m passionate about. I see real disadvantages every day and you have to see it all the time to know how tough it can be for others.

Harriet: It’s impressive that you continue to care and don’t just accept it or feel unmotivated to change it.

James: The only thing we can do is set an example, and the message that our school puts out is that no matter what your background is you can do well here, and also have opportunities to do what you want to after that. You can be whatever you want to be no matter your background.

Hopefully, that’s a powerful message but whether it sticks or whether there are enough of us working towards the same thing, remains to be seen.

Harriet: Thank you very much for talking to me today.