The Sutton Trust has published a series of research pieces looking at school admissions, repeatedly uncovering evidence that England’s top comprehensive schools are, in practice, often highly socially selective.
Building on this previous work, this research brief finds that the top 500 comprehensive schools in England still show a significant gap between the rates of Free School Meal eligibility in the local area they draw their students from and the FSM rates of their actual intakes. This gap is significantly larger in these schools than in the average comprehensive, meaning that disadvantaged pupils are less likely to get into top schools even if they have one in their local area. Changes in the education sector in recent years suggest the problem of unfair admissions to the top schools is not going away and may even be getting worse.
This brief is accompanied by the report Selective Comprehensives 2024 written by the National Foundation for Education Research (NFER) for the Sutton Trust. In the report, the NFER updates on their previous work for us on Selective Comprehensives 2017, independently outlining their findings and what they mean for understanding an education sector in transition.
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155
The number of comprehensives which are more socially selective than the average grammar school.
40%
The shortfall of FSM pupils at the highest attaining comprehensive schools compared to the average.
2.5x
The size of the FSM gap in top schools in the North of England compared to London.
Key Findings
- While the intake of the average comprehensive included 22% of students eligible for FSM, for the top 500 schools ranked by pupil progress (Progress 8 score), this was 17.1%, and ranked by exam grades (Attainment 8 score) it was just 13.3%. Furthermore, the FSM rate of the intakes of the top Progress 8 schools was 4.3 percentage points lower than the pupils living in their own catchment areas, and 5.8 percentage points for top Attainment 8 schools.
- Looking at the top schools by Progress 8, this 4.3 percentage point gap was up from 3.5 in 2016. However, taking into account the growth in FSM eligibility over time, the gap proportional to the catchment FSM rate increased from just 19.2% to 20.1%. While this increase is marginal it nonetheless suggests that there has been no improvement since 2016.
- There are also signs that overall segregation at these schools has got worse. The gap in FSM rates between the top schools for Progress 8 and the average school is widening. In 2016 they had 1.6 percentage points fewer FSM pupils than the average school. In 2022, this figure is 4.9 percentage points. While overall FSM rates have gone up during this time, proportionally, this means they have gone from taking 10% fewer FSM pupils than average, to 22% fewer.
- Since 2016, the North East, along with the West Midlands and North West regions have all overtaken London as the region with the highest proportion of FSM pupils in their schools’ intakes. Like many regions outside London and the South East, the North East has also seen its proportion of top 500 schools decrease and on average the FSM gaps in those top schools increase. The North East and North West now have the most socially selective top comprehensives in the country by Progress 8 with the North East by far the most selective on the Attainment 8 measure.
- In general, schools with a religious affiliation (faith schools) continue to be more socially selective than non-religious schools. Religious schools are over-represented in the top 500 schools under all the attainment measures. Although only representing 19% of all comprehensives they constitute 29% and 34% of the top 500 schools on Progress 8 and Attainment 8 measures respectively. Schools affiliated with non-Christian religions are the most socially selective overall while Catholic schools continue to be the most socially selective in the top 500.
- For schools in multi-academy trusts (MATs), on average the smaller the MATs they are in, the lower their FSM rates and the larger the FSM gap with their catchment area. Larger MATs are on average less socially selective than smaller MATs.
- Converter academies are over-represented in the top 500 schools, while sponsor-led academies are significantly under-represented. Top 500 sponsor-led academies (on Progress 8) appear representative of their catchment areas whereas converter academies have a negative FSM gap of 4.5 percentage points.
- Schools that converted to sponsor-led academies between 2015/16 and 2021/22 on average admit a higher proportion of FSM pupils than is present in their catchment area. This positive gap has increased over that period. By contrast the FSM gap for schools that became converter academies is negative suggesting these schools are on average more socially selective.
- Free schools, like converter academies and faith schools, are over-represented in the top 500 under both Progress 8 and Attainment 8 measures. Free schools have FSM gaps larger than sponsor-led academies and community schools, but slightly below converter academies. However, they also tend to have catchment areas with slightly higher than the national average FSM rates and higher than those of converter academies.
Recommendations for schools
- School leaders, including school governors, should implement a fair access review for their school. This should include reflecting on their year 7 intake each year and reviewing whether it reflects the local and national pictures in terms of levels of socio-economic disadvantage, as well as reviewing how their admissions policies could be adapted to address any inequalities. It is important to do this periodically, as intakes can see fluctuations year on year. Schools looking to become more socially diverse and inclusive should consider the following range of measures in relation to a) admissions policies and oversubscription criteria and b) the wider cost of schooling:
Making admissions policies fairer:
- Include pupil premium students in oversubscription priority criteria. The Schools Admissions Code currently allows for the use of pupil premium status as an oversubscription criterion, so more schools, particularly high performing schools, should move to implement this in order to create a more socially balanced intake and better reflect their local communities. This could for example mean giving pupil premium students priority up to the average proportion of those students in the local area, or up to a set level higher than this group’s proportion in the school’s current intake.
- Introducing either ballots or a banding system to determine the allocation of places when the school is oversubscribed. Introducing pupil premium priority is likely to help to improve access for the most disadvantaged pupils but will not necessarily alter the wider socio-economic mix of the student body. Introducing a system of ballots or banding has the potential to make a school’s intake more representative across the socio-economic spectrum.
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- Ballots are where potential students are selected for admission using a lottery, meaning everyone entered for a place via the ballot has an equal chance of getting in. This could be done as a full ballot for all places or used only for a proportion of the school’s intake, such as ‘marginal lotteries’. This is where most school places could be allocated on the basis of existing criteria with a smaller proportion, say 20%, reserved for applicants outside the catchment allocated by lottery. The appropriate balance of ballot allocated places will depend on a school’s specific circumstances, including the profile of the neighbourhoods around the school.
- Banding tests are currently used by a number of schools. Pupils sit an entrance test, but rather than allocating places based on ability, places are allocated equally across all ability ‘bands’. This means a balance of abilities are admitted, which is likely to have a knock-on effect on the socio-economic profile of the school. Banding is most effective when there is cooperation between schools in an area, and where all children are entered for banding tests, with tests ideally being carried out in local primary schools. Groups of schools should thus be encouraged to develop a shared approach to admissions, possibly facilitated by a local authority or a local admissions forum.
- Particular care should be taken by schools with additional admissions criteria, including faith schools or those with a focus on a specific subject specialism (such as musical aptitude). This work has shown that on average faith schools are consistently more socially selective than non-religious schools. These schools should therefore take particular care to ensure their criteria are not contributing to socio-economic inequalities in access. This could be done, for example, by implementing policies such as pupil premium priority and having this priority apply before any of their own specific admissions criteria.
Reducing the cost of attending the school:
- School leaders should ensure that wherever possible, they remove potential financial barriers to attendance at their school. Financial concerns are a significant factor for parents from low-income households when making school choices. Therefore, schools should look to reduce these costs wherever practically possible. Unnecessary costs can include expensive uniforms, extensive equipment lists or expansive costs for trips or extra-curricular activities. On uniforms specifically, schools should commit to having no more than one branded item in their uniform, keeping total uniform costs under (or as near as possible to) £100 and ensuring second hand items are available for purchase or for free. Schools should also avoid collaborating with single uniform suppliers where possible, as this often increases the cost of uniforms. Where costs on any of these items cannot be avoided, schools should look to give financial support to lower income families, and to clearly advertise the availability of this support on the admissions pages of their website and at open days.
- Secondary and primary schools should collaborate to ensure that parents are well informed before making school choices, especially regarding their rights to free transport to school. For children eligible for FSM this extends to their three nearest suitable schools within six miles of their home, 15 miles for a faith school or up to 15 miles to their closest grammar school. Schools should ensure parents are aware of this support, and given information on how to access it, when making school choices
Recommendations for government
- The government should review existing admissions code policies, including making pupil premium eligibility a required part of school’s oversubscription criteria. As well as requiring schools to include pupil premium, they should also ensure schools justify where it is placed within the order of their oversubscription criteria. Schools should be able to decide if this is an unlimited priority for this group, or whether it applies up to a certain proportion or number (e.g. the proportion of pupil premium students in the local authority, or nationally), but would need a justification behind their decision. Where schools use distance from the school or a defined catchment area among their oversubscription criteria, these should not apply to pupil premium eligible students.
- The government should hold schools accountable for the fairness of their admissions policies. School admissions policies should be better regulated, with a focus on improving access. Schools should be held accountable for their admissions policies and the impact of those policies on the socio-economic mix of their student body. This could for example, form a part of a school’s Ofsted inspection.
- Government should review current eligibility for free school transport, so that it does not become a hidden barrier to parental choice. This could include extending eligibility to all pupils eligible for pupil premium (and, therefore, those eligible for FSM in the last six years), so that families have greater certainty about the support that will be available over a longer time period. Current support also limits parents to support in a relatively small geographical area, which is likely to be particularly limiting for families in lower density or more rural areas, who could have few schools within the current maximum distance of six miles. Government should look at greater flexibility or extending the maximum distance within which this support is available.
- Government should do more to ensure the cost of school uniforms is not a barrier for school choice, by strengthening existing rules and guidelines. Existing government guidance requires school governing bodies to ‘consider’ issues related to uniform costs but falls short of stipulating concrete actions. The government should impose limits in key areas. This could include only allowing one piece of branded uniform, and not allowing single suppliers for uniforms unless this can be shown to lead to more economical outcomes for parents.
- The government should work to raise the quality of all schools, with a view to increasing the representativeness of their intakes compared to their surrounding areas and making the school system fairer. Reducing FSM gaps in schools and a more equal school system are likely to be a virtuous circle. Previous Sutton Trust research has found that schools serving disadvantaged communities experience greater difficulties in, for instance, teacher recruitment and retention, particularly in secondary schools. Data here has found the greatest disparities between the social make up of schools and their catchment areas, and lowest number of top schools, concentrated in some parts of the country with the highest FSM rates. The government should make extra funding and resources available for tackling such issues at the local level in the most disadvantaged areas.
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