article: The claim: Sir Michael Wilshaw, England's chief inspector of schools, says there is a noticeable north-south divide when it comes to the rate at which schools are improving, giving children in the North poorer chances of educational success. Reality Check verdict: There is evidence that the children in the North of England have less chance of educational success than children in the South of England at secondary level, but it is difficult to point to a single reason for this. There is a link between deprivation and poorer school results, but the most deprived areas of London have experienced dramatic improvements in schools in the past 20 years. In an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Thursday, chief inspector of schools Sir Michael Wilshaw said that in northern England "children have less of a chance of educational success than children south of the Wash". Delivering the report, he said the gap between the North and Midlands and the South was widening and now stood at 12 percentage points - in the North and Midlands, 72% of secondary schools were rated good or outstanding compared with 84% in the South. This means there are 135,000 more secondary school children being taught in under-performing schools in the northern England and the Midlands than in the South. According to Ofsted, there are more than twice as many secondary schools judged inadequate in the North and Midlands (98 schools or 6%) compared with 44 in the South and East (3%). Sir Michael also said that of the 10 worst performing local authority areas, seven were in the North or Midlands and pupils in these regions were less likely to achieve the highest grades at GCSE. The seven in the North and Midlands were: The three in the South were: The government says the proportion of good schools is increasing in every region. It has certainly increased overall - the proportion of schools judged to be good or outstanding has increased by 12 percentage points since 2011. But improvement is not happening at the same rate across the country, as is clear from the widening gap between the North and the South. The Ofsted report says that in some parts of the North and Midlands, improvement over the past five years has "stagnated". "In 2011, the North West was one of the stronger regions, but the proportion of pupils in good and outstanding schools is now just over three percentage points higher than five years ago," it says. "This means there are only just over 3,000 more pupils in good and outstanding secondary schools in the region compared to an increase of over 90,000 pupils in London in the same period." Some of this difference will be down to a declining pupil population, but according to Ofsted this does not account for it entirely. A report from think tank the IPPR in 2015 found there was a north-south gap in GCSE attainment, in terms of the number of pupils achieving five or more GCSEs including English and maths. On average, 55% of pupils in the
summary: The north-south divide in education was a central theme in Ofsted's annual report for the second year in a row.