Thomas and Tommy: A case study

Why a child’s birth is too often their destiny

by Matt Bromley

In Book 1 in my Equity in Education series, I introduced readers to Thomas and Tommy, two 15-year-old boys who went to the same school but whose lives beyond the school gates were poles apart. I’d visited them both at home whilst they were in Year 11 studying for their GCSEs.

Thomas lived with his mum and dad in a five-bedroomed detached house in leafy suburbia. There was a large, manicured garden, home cinema, a study with more books lining the walls than the local library had, and a heated swimming pool in the basement.

Until recently, Tommy had lived with his mum and dad, but he and his mum were taken into emergency accommodation. Their temporary flat was on the other side of town. It had one bedroom and one reception room. The reception consisted of a kitchenette and a threadbare sofa which was more spring than cushion. There was a shared bathroom down the corridor which didn’t have a lock on the door or a shower over the bath. The carpets were sticky and the whole building smelled of damp. Tommy shared the bedroom, top-and-tailing with his younger sister; his mum took the sofa. The ceiling leaked and the incessant drip-drip was distracting, like a head full of bees. The heating system was on the blink, but that didn’t matter because Tommy’s mum couldn’t afford the heating bills anyway.

Thomas had quite the social life: Monday was chess club; Tuesday was tennis; Wednesday was debating society; Thursday was piano; and Friday was time spent with friends. The weekends were no less frantic: Thomas played football on Saturdays and spent Sundays online gaming.

Tommy hadn’t made friends in the area, but he didn’t like being in the flat, so he spent time at a local cafe because they had free Wi-Fi and didn’t ask questions so long as it wasn’t too busy, and he sat quietly in a corner. It was warm and bright. There was a plug to charge his phone, and the tap water was free. He couldn’t use the local library because it had been closed just like the community centre where he used to live. Until the community centre had closed, he would often go to the youth club there on Thursdays to use the computers or play sports.

Thomas thought he got too much homework, but it wasn’t too hard. His mum and dad helped him whenever needed – and there was always his private tutor. His mum worked from home so was always on hand when needed; his dad ran his own business and organised his diary so he could pick Thomas up from chess club and debating society and watch him play football at the weekends.

Tommy knew his dad was a good man, but he lost his job in construction during Covid and struggled with the lockdowns. He became less patient, more prone to outbursts. Tommy’s mum worked the tills at the local supermarket and also cleaned at the hospital. She worked shifts which could be tough. Some days, Tommy had to get his sister up and ready for school and some days he had to pick her up after school and babysit her till mum got home. There was no washing machine in the flat and the local launderette was expensive, so their clothes – which were too small – had to survive several wears. Tommy struggled to concentrate at school and often felt tired, hungry, and distracted. He would get into trouble for not doing his homework or for daydreaming in class. He would get behind because he was often late.

Thomas had easy manners, was confident and articulate. In the days before his dad bought a villa in Spain, the family would travel Europe. His weekends growing up were always busy – his parents liked to go to the theatre and to visit art galleries and museums. Books also featured heavily in his early memories. His dad would read to him most nights. His favourite author was Roald Dahl.

Tommy used to be eligible for something called the Pupil Premium. His mum didn’t know why that had stopped, something to do with changes to her Universal Credit. All she knew was that they didn’t suddenly get any wealthier!

Thomas intended to stay on at school to do his A Levels then take a year out travelling. After that, he wanted to go to university to read economics like his dad. His dad could get him a job in the city. He knew what he needed to get in his GCSEs and what A Levels would be best for university applications. He knew all his extra-curricular activities would help when it came to his UCAS form, too, and his parents had said that they’d help him financially.

Tommy had been feeling increasingly anxious. Anxious about school, about homework, about getting into trouble; anxious about not sleeping, not eating; anxious about his appearance, his health, his sister, his mum, where they were going to live next, what was going to happen to his dad.

Thomas was a high-performing student, predicted a raft of grade 9s in his GCSEs; Tommy was not. Thomas and Tommy were students at the same school. Thomas and Tommy had the same IQ. And yet there was little doubt that Thomas would outperform Tommy at school, not because he was brighter or harder working, but because he started the race halfway round the track and had more expensive running shoes.

By the time I was researching Book 2, a year had passed since I’d first visited Thomas and Tommy. In the interim, they’d finished their GCSEs and completed Year 11. Thomas was in the school sixth form studying A Levels; Tommy had enrolled at the local further education college where he was resitting his English and maths GCSEs alongside a Level 2 qualification in computing.

On my return visit, Tommy told me that college hadn’t been his first choice, but he hadn’t got the GCSE results he’d needed to stay on in the school sixth form. Nevertheless, he said, he was enjoying it. There was more freedom and you were treated more like an adult than at school. Besides, his teachers at school had never liked him, and he had few friends to speak of. The course he was on was easy – too easy. He had applied for the Level 3 course, but he hadn’t met the entry requirements because he had needed grade 4s or higher in both English and maths.

Tommy hadn’t got the grades he’d needed, not because he hadn’t known his stuff, but because the exam questions had made no sense. He told me that the English language paper had had a question about skiing holidays or something posh like that, and yet he wouldn’t know a crampon if it bit him. And he hadn’t understood a lot of the words in the unseen text extract either. Plus, he was tired and had struggled to concentrate for the full ninety minutes. He’d started thinking about his mum who’d just lost her job cleaning at the local hospital. He’d thought about his dad, too, who’d got into a bit of bother with the police after a fight outside his local pub. And he’d begun to suspect his sister was being bullied at school because she had become quiet and withdrawn.

Tommy told me he had tried to revise but finding the time and space to study had always been hard, and he’d lacked the motivation. In the spring, he had managed to get a part-time job clearing tables at the Polish cafe near his mum’s flat because he knew he needed to help pay the bills now it was just him, his sister, and their mum. And their flat was tiny; he didn’t even have his own bed, let alone a quiet corner in which to sit and work. And the closer the exams got, the more he’d begun to stress about them. He’d started having panic attacks. School hadn’t helped much; there was a homework club, but it was after school and he’d needed to collect his sister so couldn’t stay late.

School had been tough because Tommy hadn’t felt like he’d belonged. Primary school had been a bit better, at least his teacher ‘got him’. But then he’d moved to ‘big school’ and it had all gone downhill from there. His teachers thought he was thick, put him in the bottom sets, and gave him boring work to do. They thought he was less able because he wasn’t as clever with words as some of the posh kids from up the hill, he told me; he didn’t have their confidence, couldn’t speak as well as them, and didn’t always know how to explain his thoughts. He hadn’t read all the books they’d read or been to all the places they’d been. Didn’t play football at the weekends so often got left out, made to feel different.

As we’d sat in the college canteen, I’d asked Tommy what was next and he’d looked confused. ‘Do you mean after dinner?’ he’d replied. ‘No, I mean, what’s your plan for the future? Where do you see yourself going, what do you want to do with your life?’ Tommy had stared down at his chips for what had seemed like a long time, then he’d faced me and said: ‘Survive, I guess; get by. Earn enough to help my mum and sister out. I want my sister to go to university; she’s definitely got the brains for it.’ I’d told him he did, too. I’d seen his IQ score, his CATS and SATs. ‘You’re a bright lad,’ I’d said. ‘Yeah,’ Tommy had replied. ‘But I wasn’t the right kind of bright for school, though, was I? Or else I wouldn’t be sitting here now.’

This year, to research Book 3, I’ve been back to visit Thomas and Tommy to see how their lives are progressing.

They are now nineteen and have left compulsory education. Thomas is at university, having left his school sixth form with straight As in his A Levels and decided against taking a gap year. Tommy is what they call ‘NEET’ – not in education, employment, or training – after finishing college with a Level 2 qualification in Computing – having been unable to afford to continue to Level 3 and not being motivated to stay in college any longer – and now unable to find a job.

Thomas is at Cambridge studying (he says ‘reading’) Economics, but I visit him at home during the Christmas holidays. He seems taller somehow, but perhaps it’s an illusion, his burgeoning self-confidence adding an inch or two. He seems more like a man than the last time I saw him, which was only eighteen months ago. I ask him how university is going. He tells me that he feels like he’s found his tribe. He feels like he belongs there. The social life is amazing, and he’s made some great friends – friends for life, he says. From good stock. Their family connections will prove useful later, his dad told him. He plays rugby and has even started rowing, hoping to make it into the team. His dad went to the same college and knows the Master socially, so Thomas was made to feel at home the moment he arrived. His course is going well, too, and he enjoys the intellectual challenge. It’s s step-up from his A Levels, he says.

I find Tommy at the back of the Polish café round the corner from the flat he shares with his mum and younger sister. He’s scrolling on his phone. He looks up at the sound of the door and smiles when he sees me enter. As I get closer, he nods at his screen and says ‘Indeed’. When he notices my frown (indeed, what? I’m thinking), he adds, ‘job hunting’. I ask him what sort of job he’s looking for, and he says anything in computing or IT, or anything at all, to be honest. Flipping burgers at McDonald’s. Beggars can’t be choosers, he says. But he’s limited in the hours he can work because he has to take his sister to school and pick her up afterwards. Gives her breakfast and makes her tea, freezer food like chicken nuggets mostly because he’s no Gordon Ramsay, he says. I raise an eyebrow. He tells me his mum got a new job (he reminds me that she lost her cleaning job at the hospital due to NHS cutbacks) so isn’t around much. He doesn’t know what she does, but she’s always tired, has these big bags under her eyes and more wrinkles on her forehead every day. She’s a bit less patient than she used to be. And your dad? I ask. His face changes in an instant. Like dark clouds scudding across the sun. He’s no longer in the picture, he says, shrugging. He looks down at his phone. I know better than to pry but I later learn that Tommy’s dad took his own life.

Thomas’s dad has a job lined up for him when he’s finished university but he’s going to take the MPhil in Finance and Economics once he’s graduated before taking up employment in the city. He knows this will enable him to progress more quickly and much further – perhaps even taking over his dad’s business eventually. He already knows a lot about the company – and the world of finance – because he did his work experience there when he was at school. Besides, his dad is always talking about it and inviting colleagues and clients over to the house for dinner. It’s what Thomas grew up on. Thomas was being conditioned – his term, not mine – from birth!

Tommy isn’t bitter. He knows he’s been dealt a losing hand, but that’s life, isn’t it? he says. Some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouths and some – like him – are born with nothing: no spoon and no food to eat with it. He saw his classmates at school growing in self-confidence all the time, learning more about the world and their place in it. They had connections, opportunities, experiences. He didn’t. Whilst they were thriving; he was barely surviving. They knew stuff he didn’t, went places he couldn’t. He missed out on a work experience placement in Year 10 because he didn’t know anyone who’d take him on, and the school had limited places available for those who didn’t self-canvass. He missed out on a careers event, too, because he was poorly and so was off school that week.

Thomas completed two work placements before leaving school: one at his father’s firm and another arranged through a family friend. He observed meetings, shadowed analysts, and began to understand how economic theory translated into commercial decision-making. These experiences strengthened his personal statement and gave him concrete examples to discuss at interview.

Tommy tells me he sometimes wonders what might have been different if someone had shown him how to ‘play the game’ earlier. Not change who he was, he’s quick to add; just understand the rules better. At school, he often felt as though everyone else had been given a handbook but his had been lost in the post. People talked about personal statements, predicted grades, apprenticeships, contextual offers, internships, networking, summer schools… He remembers sitting in assemblies where universities were discussed, but the language felt abstract, distant – like it was meant for someone else not him. He says nobody in his family had ever been to university. Nobody he knew worked in a professional job. Or had what you could call a career. They just did what they could to earn enough money to get by. When teachers spoke about careers, he didn’t always know what the jobs actually were. Investment banking, management consultancy, corporate law – the words drifted past his eyes like floaters, nothing to anchor them in meaning. Even roles that sounded more familiar still felt opaque: project management, digital marketing, data analysis. What did people actually do all day? How did you become that kind of person? What did success even look like?

Thomas, by contrast, had grown up immersed in such conversations. He tells me that he cannot remember a time when university was not assumed. It was never framed as a question of if? but where? And even then, it was a binary choice: Oxford or Cambridge. When I ask whether he ever doubted that Oxbridge was a realistic option, he laughs politely. No, he says; people from his family had always gone there. Besides, his parents had explained the process in detail: subject choices, super-curricular reading, interview preparation, entrance assessments. He had attended a summer school in Year 12 and had already visited the college twice before applying. By the time he submitted his application, the unfamiliar had lost its prefix.

Tommy describes feeling constantly on the back foot. He remembers being told to ‘work smarter not harder’ when revising for his GCSEs, but nobody ever really explained what that meant. He tried rereading pages of notes over and over again, but the information never seemed to stick. When exams came, panic crowded out whatever he had managed to learn. His mind would drift, latch onto worries at home, replay conversations, imagine worst-case scenarios. Ninety minutes in that exam hall had felt like nine hours of torture.

Tommy says he wishes someone had shown him how memory works. How practice testing strengthens recall. How spacing study over time is more effective than cramming. How to break complex tasks into manageable steps. How to notice when your mind is wandering and bring it back. Nobody had explained that struggling was part of learning rather than evidence that he wasn’t clever enough. He assumed the confident students simply found everything easy, were just a lot brighter than he was.

Thomas remembers being explicitly taught revision strategies by his mum who works from home as a translator. She had shared guidance on cognitive science, recommended apps, provided structured revision timetables. His parents had also paid for a private tutor who helped him plan his study schedule months in advance. By the time exam season arrived, he had completed several cycles of practice papers and received detailed feedback on how to improve.

Tommy says confidence is a strange thing. People often assume it grows naturally, but he thinks confidence grows when small successes accumulate. When effort leads to improvement. When somebody notices and tells you that you are making progress. He remembers moments at school when he did well, but they were few and far between, and often overshadowed by behaviour points, detentions, or being told to concentrate, listen, try harder. He describes how difficult it is to speak up when you are worried about sounding stupid. He became skilled at staying quiet, keeping his head down, avoiding attention. He knew he had ideas but often struggled to find the right words quickly enough. By the time he had rehearsed what he wanted to say in his head, the discussion had moved on. Over time, silence became habit.

Thomas, on the other hand, had grown accustomed to articulating his thinking from an early age. Family dinners often involved debate. His parents encouraged him to justify his opinions, to question assumptions, to explore different perspectives. He joined a debating society, where structured argument became second nature. At university, he finds that tutorials reward precisely these habits: speaking with clarity, defending a viewpoint, responding to challenge.

Tommy says that sometimes the hardest part is imagining a future that looks different from the present. When immediate concerns dominate – paying bills, caring responsibilities, unstable housing – long-term planning feels like a luxury he simply can’t afford. He describes feeling trapped in short term horizons: this week, this month, getting through today. Aspirations shrink to fit circumstances. And yet, when I ask what he would do if opportunity presents itself, his answer is immediate: something in technology, he says. He enjoys solving problems, figuring out how systems work. He likes the logic of coding, the satisfaction when something finally runs correctly. He smiles briefly as he describes building a simple website during college – the first time he had felt academically capable in years.

It strikes me again that the difference between Thomas and Tommy is not potential but navigation. One has been guided, coached, and equipped with atlases and a compass; the other has been expected to hack his way through unfamiliar terrain without a map.

Schools cannot eliminate inequality, but they can reduce the extent to which one’s starting point determines one’s destination. They can broaden horizons so that other futures become imaginable. They can teach learners how to plan, monitor, and evaluate their own progress. They can help young people understand how effort connects to improvement, building the belief that ability is not fixed.

They can create structured opportunities for meaningful encounters with the world beyond the school gates – workplaces, universities, professional networks – so that ambition is grounded in lived experience rather than abstract hope. They can explicitly teach the language of power whilst affirming the value of learners’ existing identities, enabling young people to adapt their communication to different contexts without feeling that they must abandon who they are. They can ensure that assessment measures learning rather than familiarity with particular cultural experiences, and that learners understand how to prepare effectively. They can cultivate leadership that prioritises character as well as credentials, recognising that resilience, self-regulation, curiosity, and empathy are not optional extras but foundational capacities.

The task for schools committed to equity is not simply to raise attainment, but to expand agency: to ensure that young people like Tommy are not left trying to decode a system that was never properly explained to them.

Because talent is everywhere. Opportunity, sadly, is not… yet.

Let us be clear: had Thomas and Tommy been switched at birth, so too would their life chances be reversed. Despite what many privileged people may think, success is determined, not exclusively and not always, but in most cases, by the sheer luck of birth. It is much easier to be successful when you start the race halfway round the running track and have an expert coach and expensive equipment.

There are, of course, outliers, people who came from nothing but achieved much. But rags-to-riches stories like these are so rare as to be exceptions that prove the rule. And often these outliers, when you delve a little deeper, did benefit from circumstance. I consider myself to be such an example…

I was born and brought up in a poor, working-class family and had no silver spoon. But I went on to be (relatively) successful in my field. I am now demonstrably middle-class: A professional with a raft of good qualifications, a homeowner, car owner, and taker of foreign holidays, able to fit in and feel comfortable in any social circle. But my journey was not one of individual means. Yes, I worked hard, I ‘grafted’ as we’re told we must if we want to escape our disadvantage. But I was also lucky. I had good teachers and available and supportive parents who valued education and made sacrifices to ensure both my brother and I received a good education, moving into the catchment of a better state comprehensive. I had free access to excellent public facilities including libraries and leisure centres. I was given a full government grant that enabled me to go to university. And often I was simply in the right place at the right time.

The fact remains that most people born into disadvantage or who have additional and different needs cannot and do not escape that disadvantage, not because they are not bright enough or do not work hard enough, but because we do not live in a meritocracy and life is neither fair nor equitable.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Whilst society needs to change for there to be any meaningful and longstanding improvements to this situation, there are many changes that schools can make to help improve the educational and life chances of disadvantaged and vulnerable children, and to create a fairer, more equitable place to learn and thrive.

So, what can do we differently for learners like Tommy in our school? And make no mistake: there will be a Tommy because he is not unusual; every school has young people of equal potential whose educational trajectories diverge not because of differences in intellect or effort, but because of differences in access, exposure, confidence, and guidance. If equity is the goal, then intention is not enough. Schools must translate moral purpose into structured practice. The question is not whether schools can eliminate inequality – they cannot, at least not alone – but whether they can deliberately compensate for it.

Securing Future Success for Every Child is not a book of initiatives, but a coherent provision map designed to expand agency, build capability, and ensure that background does not predetermine destination. Regard this as the blueprint. My book provides the detailed architectural drawings needed to turn this blueprint into a building.

About the series

Equity in education has never been more important. We live in an increasingly unequal, fractured society, and schools, as microcosms of that society, are increasingly unequal, fractured institutions. Schools cannot solve all of society’s ills, and nor should they be expected to; but they can do more to ensure a child’s birth is not also their destiny.

Securing Future Success for Every Child, the third volume in my four-book Equity in Education series is out 9 November and available to pre-order now. It explores ways of removing barriers to inclusion and belonging, and of providing a more equitable education for all. The 3-book series provides practical strategies to help teachers include the excluded and mitigate some of the effects of living in an unequal, fractured society.

The structure of the series offers a logical process for schools to follow in their pursuit of inclusion…

First, schools need to create a whole-school culture of inclusion and belonging, one focused on attendance, behaviours, and community. In 2024, I wrote a 5-part series about this here. My book, Why School Doesn’t Work for Every Child, delves deeper into this subject.

Second, schools need to define, tangibly, what inclusion and belonging look like in the classroom and then ensure that curriculum planning, teaching, and assessment are truly inclusive of every child. In 2025, I wrote a 5-part series about this here. My book, Making the Classroom Work for Every Child, provides a deeper dive in this subject.

Third, schools need to look beyond their gates and develop a practical, evidence-informed framework for developing learners who are: