Fiona Millar highlights Sutton Trust research in a Guardian Education comment piece on school admissions.

Over the past few weeks I have found myself unusually preoccupied with the issue of school admissions. Secondary open days are taking place all around me, and the subject is on many parents’ lips.

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And the problem is now becoming an open sore for the politicians. The focus on disadvantaged pupils, specifically those eligible for the pupil premium, sits increasingly uneasily with evidence about school intakes.

A recent internal analysis by the Department for Education of the top 100 non-selective schools apparently only reinforced what organisations such as the Sutton Trust and the British Humanist Association have been saying for years: the highest-performing schools take relatively few disadvantaged pupils compared to their local populations. But the latest solution, letting all schools rather than just academies and free schools prioritise those eligible for the pupil premium, just seems another lame duck response to a chronic problem.

There is no evidence that schools really will seize this (voluntary) opportunity. No one seems to know how many academies and free schools have already chosen to, but I understand the DfE’s research showed that none in the “top 100” had.

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Read the full article here

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