How can they ensure that every student thrives, regardless of his or her socio-economic background? The following sections review the challenges and propose policy recommendations for disadvantaged schools and their students’ success. These programmes need to ensure that school leaders are prepared to focus on issues that are more characteristic of disadvantaged schools such as: student behaviour, motivation and engagement; teaching and learning for disadvantaged and/or low performing students; improvement of the physical environment of the school; and cultures of care and achievement (Day et al.,