“The warning signs are there from a very early, early age. You know, frankly from preschool” – Alan Milburn
Four is an extraordinary age to start talking about a lifetime out of work. Yet that is the warning from Alan Milburn, the former Cabinet minister leading the Government’s review into the growing number of young people outside education, employment or training. Children who were behind when they started school were almost three times as likely to be outside education, employment or training at sixteen or seventeen. Before they have learnt their times tables, the warning lights are flashing.
By eleven, the picture is starker. Those with low attainment at the end of primary school are several times more likely to go to secondary schools rated poorly by Ofsted, and are then only a quarter as likely to take EBacc subjects from 14. By the time of GCSE exams, 96 per cent of high attainers in primary school pass English and Maths compared to 20 per cent of low attainers.
And broader engagement falls over the same period. The incidence of home-schooling trebles from Years 6 to 10. The latest absence figures, published last week, revealed a record 164,225 children in England missing at least half their schooling in Spring 2026. The problem is concentrated among older pupils, with severe absence increasing sixfold between Years 6 and 10. Those falling furthest behind are losing still more of the teaching they need.
Put these facts together and an uncomfortable question follows. By the time someone has spent years falling behind, missing school and failing exams, is there a point at which re-engagement becomes almost impossible?
So how do you re-engage someone who has spent years learning that education is something they fail at? By eighteen, they may have spent more than a decade falling behind. Another course, another exam, another chance to be told they have fallen short. What would make this time different?
At WeMindTheGap, we do something different. In order to end with a paid job, we start with a paid job.
Our WeGrow programme gives eighteen- to twenty-five-year-olds six months of paid work across a range of placements, followed by six months of continued support. Participants gain experience across different workplaces, alongside coaching, skills development and help with their next steps. Employers give them real tasks, workmates and a chance to learn what they can do.
They also gain three things that years of growing disengagement can strip away: accountability, belonging and connections.
First, accountability. There is somewhere to be, a time to arrive and a job to do. Their effort earns a wage, and colleagues depend on their contribution. Attendance, punctuality and reliability become habits they practise each day – with consequences, like in a workplace. With support comes an expectation that they will play their part.
It works. In Flintshire, 91 per cent of employer ratings for attendance, punctuality and reliability were “excellent”.
Second, belonging. Participants join a community of young people taking those steps together. They make friends, share experiences and celebrate each other’s successes. Turning up means seeing people they know, having something to contribute and being missed when they are away. Every single participant in our Wrexham end-of-programme feedback said they had made new friends.
Third, connections. Different placements bring young people into contact with employers, colleagues and jobs they may never have considered. This is at the heart of our work supported by the National Lottery: bringing together people who would never normally meet. They discover strengths they had little chance to show at school. As their horizons broaden, they can begin to picture what their future could hold. We love to celebrate ‘little wins’ – young people seeing or experiencing things they never had before. Across the two programmes, we recorded 163 “little wins” over the year: steps forward in confidence, behaviour and experience that help make bigger changes possible.
The results show it works. In the last year, of twenty young people offered places across our Wrexham and Flintshire programmes, eighteen graduated. Four months after the programmes ended, over half were in employment. The others were pursuing next steps such as education or training.
The changes reach home too. After four weeks, one father described his withdrawn son becoming happier and having things to talk about when they spent time together. He had been deeply worried about what came next. Now he could see his son growing in confidence.
There are setbacks, and progress takes time. Some young people need this supported step into work before they are ready to sustain a job on their own. WeGrow lets them build the habits, relationships and experience that help them take that next step. Staff must judge when to offer more help and when to ask more of them, keeping independence as the goal.
That gives us a practical answer to the question of re-engagement. Give young people real responsibilities. Bring them into a community where they belong. Build connections through which they can see what their future could hold. These are things employers and local communities can help provide, with the right support around them.
The warning signs may be visible at four, and early intervention is of course extremely important. But we cannot use it as an excuse to give up on those who have the odds stacked against them. They still have lives to build, gifts to discover and something to give. Our task is to help them see that future and give them a fair chance to build it.
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