The education of average and below-average pupils became a national concern.
The Newsom Report, often associated with the phrase Half Our Future, focused on pupils who were not in grammar schools and whose needs and potential were often underestimated.
This matters because it challenged a system where many children were given lower expectations and narrower futures.
Awareverse reads this through the same lens as SEND: once a system lowers its expectations of a child, that child may have to fight the system before they can even start learning.
A common mistake is confusing lower test performance with lower human potential.
Who had power here, who was left outside, and what would have changed if the human being was seen first?
These deep dives open out from this part of the timeline.