Children and young people are most damaged by the direct harms of inequality. We need an education system that rejects the myths of meritocracy. London's schools should focus on building citizens, on enriching young people’s minds, expanding experiences, exploring relationships, building confidence and trust. London’s amazing teachers and schools should be freed to richly educate all our young people, not forced to label, divide, segregate and exclude. Today young Londoners get excluded from school to improve the schools results and reputation.

Sign the petition for a fairer London

Read this guest blog by June O'Sullivan MBE, CEO of the London Early Years Foundation, about child poverty in London today.

Read this report of our meeting with Professor of Education Diane Reay, talking about her book, 'Miseducation: inequality, education and the working classes'. Vital reading for anyone who wants to understand how just how unfair our education system really is, but also how unfair it is for schools to be expected to fix all our wider social ills. Our unequal society messes up our children's lives and schools alone can't fix it.

Read this comment piece about the differences between being a child in London in the 1970s and early 80s (when Sadiq Khan was growing up), and the challenges faced by young people today.

Watch sociologist Jo Littler describe how toxic (and false) the concept of meritocracy is for society, and for young people. We hosted our own fabulous meeting with Jo but failed to record it. This is Jo talking about her book 'Against Meritocracy: culture, power and myths of mobility' at Goldsmiths College in 2019.

Read all the Agenda points:

• It's "Inequality stupid"

• Fair economy: fair pay, fair taxes, fair incomes, fair rewards

• Fair housing, fair space, fair rents

• Climate change and the environment

• Children and young people

• Press and the media

• Power and democracy