Worth Beyond Metrics: The Performance Society

The Government’s white paper Every Child Achieving and Thriving speaks repeatedly of inclusion, ambition, and high standards for every child.[i] It assumes, rightly, that reform must address both structural inconsistency and rising need. Yet reform always lands within an existing culture. In England, that culture has been shaped for more than two decades by accountability.

League tables, Progress 8 measures, attendance thresholds, and inspection frameworks now structure the daily life of schools. The Education Policy Institute’s annual reporting consistently demonstrates the centrality of attainment metrics in assessing school performance and narrowing gaps.[ii] Ofsted’s inspection handbook codifies how schools are evaluated, setting out criteria through which quality is judged and compared.[iii] These mechanisms were introduced to improve standards and protect children from neglect. In many respects, they have done so.

However, accountability systems do more than measure performance; they shape it. They determine what is noticed, rewarded, and prioritised. When outcomes are quantified, they become the dominant language of success. In that environment, worth can become subtly entangled with achievement.

For children with SEND, this presents a tension. Progress may be uneven. Development may not align with national benchmarks. Flourishing may take relational, communicative, or emotional forms that are not easily reducible to data. When attainment becomes the primary indicator of thriving, children whose growth does not fit the metric risk appearing deficient rather than different.

The white paper’s emphasis on earlier intervention and clearer support planning seeks to address structural failings in consistency and access.[iv] That ambition is welcome. From the perspective of a parent of SEND children, and as someone who has led services for adults with learning disabilities, I recognise the urgency of reform. Yet structural reform within an unchanged performance logic will always be partial.

The wider cultural context reinforces this concern. NHS England reports that 20.3 per cent of 8–16 year olds in 2023 met the criteria for a probable mental disorder, a marked increase compared with 2017.[v] The Children’s Commissioner’s national consultation with young people, The Big Ask, recorded significant anxiety about academic pressure and expectations.⁵ While no single cause explains rising mental health need, it is difficult to ignore the environment of sustained evaluation in which young people are growing up.

Sociologist Michael Sandel has argued that modern meritocratic cultures risk attaching moral worth to measurable success, creating what he describes as a “tyranny of merit.”⁶ In such systems, achievement becomes not simply an outcome but a verdict on identity. Those who succeed appear deserving; those who struggle appear personally lacking. Education systems do not invent this logic, but they can amplify it.

The impact is not evenly distributed. The Education Policy Institute’s research continues to show persistent attainment gaps linked to disadvantage, special educational needs, and gender.² Boys’ educational outcomes, particularly in certain disadvantaged communities, remain a matter of concern in national data.[vi] In a culture where productivity and measurable output define value, those who fall behind in formal systems can experience not only academic difficulty but also a fracture in identity.

The Church is not immune to similar dynamics. Congregations track attendance, participation, and financial sustainability. Growth is often narrated numerically. Measurement in itself is not problematic; stewardship requires attentiveness. The danger lies in allowing metrics to define theological value. Activity can quietly substitute for formation. Visibility can become a proxy for faithfulness.

Children with SEND frequently expose the limits of a productivity logic. A child who may never achieve age-related expectations still possesses irreducible worth. A young person whose independence is partial still belongs fully within community. If thriving is defined solely by measurable attainment, such children will always appear to be falling short. If thriving is understood as participation, relational security, and growth appropriate to the individual, the frame shifts.

This is why SEND reform surfaces a deeper question than administrative process. Reform is not only about funding models or the transition from one type of plan to another. It is about the kind of anthropology that underpins the system. The white paper speaks of high expectations for every child.[vii] The crucial issue is whether those expectations are grounded in productivity or in dignity.

Is a person valuable because they achieve, or because they are?

Policy cannot answer that question alone. But policy reveals what a society assumes. If reform operates within a culture that equates worth with output, then children who cannot conform to that output will continue to struggle for belonging, regardless of structural improvements.

The challenge for schools, churches, and families alike is not to abandon standards but to root them in a richer understanding of the person. Without that shift, reform may refine efficiency while leaving formation untouched.

[i] Department for Education, Every Child Achieving and Thriving (London: Department for Education, 23 February 2026), https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/every-child-achieving-and-thriving.

[ii] Education Policy Institute, Education in England: Annual Report 2024 (London: Education Policy Institute, 2024), https://epi.org.uk/publications-and-research/education-in-england-annual-report-2024/.

[iii] Ofsted, School Inspection Handbook (Manchester: Ofsted, 2024), https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-inspection-handbook-eif.

[iv] NHS England, Mental Health of Children and Young People in England, 2023 (Wave 4 Follow-Up) (Leeds: NHS England, 2023), https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/mental-health-of-children-and-young-people-in-england/2023-wave-4-follow-up.

[v] Children’s Commissioner for England, The Big Ask: The Big Answer (London: Children’s Commissioner, 2022), https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/report/the-big-ask/.

[vi] Michael J. Sandel, The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? (London: Allen Lane, 2020).

[vii] Education Policy Institute, Education in England: Annual Report 2024.

Series Note: This is Post 2 of eight exploring SEND reform, creative education, inclusion, and the theology of the Broken Church.