As a group, white working class boys are falling further behind their black and Asian classmates in public examinations. White British boys from poor families perform worse at GCSE than almost any other racial group. Official figures show that only 24% of those entitled to free school meals gained five or more good GCSEs last year, compared with 65% of the poorest Chinese boys and 48% of poor Indian and Bangladeshi boys.

The figures come as research by Manchester University and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation confirms that poor white pupils are losing out in the battle for funding. The Manchester University research centred on a detailed case study in an unnamed deprived inner-city school, which received a “disproportionate” level of funding to tackle inequality. Money was being targeted at pupils with English as an additional language, but “white learners from highly disadvantaged backgrounds were reportedly often overlooked”, the report said. One local authority officer told researchers that other much more disadvantaged white areas were losing out because, “white poverty and underachievement aren’t as headline grabbing or sexy”.

In the past three years, the proportion of poor white British boys attaining top-grade GCSEs has risen by 7% yet the proportion of impoverished boys from other ethnic groups reaching the same target has risen faster. For example, the number of poor Bangladeshi boys achieving five top grades rose by more than 12% while for Pakistani boys results rose by almost 10%. Black Caribbean and black African boys improved their scores by more than 9%. The Manchester research revealed that poor white children may also be losing out because they are not playing the admissions system. “A trend found especially in white working-class areas was for parents to send their children to the local school, even where it had been branded a ‘failing’ school,” the report said.

What is striking, looking at the figures, is the fact that this is not just about being poor. While poverty makes little difference to the achievements at school of some groups, it makes a huge difference to white British children – and particularly to boys.

Some of the explanation for the relatively poor performance of white working class boys at GCSE is that they don’t learn to read effectively early on and are therefore never really able to engage in subjects which require high-level language skills. The systematic introduction of phonics into the primary and early years curriculum will go some way in helping to address the poor literacy skills of many boys from working class backgrounds. However, a piecemeal, sporadic approach to raising the attainment of white working class boys will only ever deal with the symptoms, not the causes of underachievement.

What is required is a more focused strategy that will seek to raise the attainment of white working class boys – similar to the successful project recently undertaken in London that looked at how to best support black, Afro-Caribbean children. We need to look more closely at how teachers can better engage these ‘lost boys’ in their own learning. We need to be clear about the key learning barriers to success and how we might be able to address these barriers both structurally and pedagogically.

The Government should also consider targeting additional resources to those schools where the attainment of white working class boys is an issue. Once again there is already a precedent for this with type of approach – the Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant (EMAG) has been effective in helping schools to raise the attainment of particular groups of ethnic minority pupils.

One reason for the recent growth in support for the British National Party in some parts of the country has been its ability to respond to and exploit genuine local grievances. They often have success on the “forgotten” white areas, where people feel no one is listening to them. It is also true to say that the BNP often finds support in a context of significant problems: high unemployment, deprivation, lack of educational achievement, high crime rates, drugs, and people of different ethnic backgrounds living apparently separate lives which encourages the growth of myths and rumour

The BNP tactic will be to use this information to focus on people who traditionally have voted Labour and in many cases feel neglected by this government. Many of these people feel that they have only two places they can go. One is not to vote, the other is to vote for the far right. The under-achievement of white working class boys should concern us all – we are failing them and they deserve better.