The report, led by the University of Bristol and funded by the Nuffield Foundation, uncovers in detail how the entry selection criteria used by most secondary schools in England, is mainly based on where pupils live and their preferences. Findings showed pupils from more affluent households are 43% more likely to be enrolled in a highly effective school than lower-income household pupils.
Lead author Simon Burgess, Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol, said: “Most pupils in England live near enough to an effective school to be able to commute there. But our unique data clearly shows how schools’ geographic admissions criteria are effectively ruling out certain pupils.
“The process is not random – pupils living in poorer neighbourhoods lose access to the most effective schools, while pupils in richer areas are hugely favoured.”
Interim findings of the research project showed that the vast majority (88%) of secondary schools used geographical location – including catchment areas and distance or travel time from home to school – to decide which pupils are admitted.
This report, which analysed more than 550,000 pupils and some 3,250 schools in 152 local authorities across England, looked at the schools within a commutable range of pupils’ homes and calculated the average effectiveness of those schools for each pupil. School effectiveness, also known as Progress 8, is measured as the average progress pupils make from the end of primary school to their GCSEs.
Findings revealed that less than one in five (around 18%) of pupils eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) were enrolled at a highly effective school, defined as a school in the top quartile of effectiveness, compared to around 25% of pupils not eligible for FSM.
Prof Burgess said: “In a nutshell, desirable schools generate substantial house price premiums in their catchment areas, so this admissions criteria disproportionately penalises pupils from poorer households.
“The gap in effectiveness between schools that a pupil can simply commute to and ones that they could actually get an offer from is what we call the ‘effectiveness gap.’ The pattern by income disadvantage is stark: This gap is much greater in poorer neighbourhoods. In fact, the effectiveness gap is more than twice as big in the poorest neighbourhoods than it is in more affluent places.”
To help make the school admissions more socially equitable, the researchers predicted the effect of three possible reforms to admissions criteria: prioritising FSM-eligible pupils up to a specified quota; a quota of places decided by a ballot; and testing pupils and allocating each school a balance of pupils with different levels of academic ability.
Findings showed that giving priority to a set proportion of FSM-eligible pupils would give the best balance between reducing inequality whilst not causing widespread disruption to school allocations. If FSM-eligible pupils have priority (at up to 15% of places in each school), they could access more effective schools; in fact the average effectiveness of schools these pupils would attend would be 16% higher, while also ensuring 94% of pupils would be assigned the same school as under the current system.
Prof Burgess said: “This simple intervention would significantly reduce the inequality created by catchment areas in school admissions, which impedes social mobility.”
Co-author Mariagrazia Cavallo, who gained her PhD in Economics at the University of Bristol and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER), added: “Our modelling showed the gap in average school effectiveness between disadvantaged and advantaged pupils fell by 17% without causing much disruption to existing school admissions.”
Co-author Ellen Greaves, who also gained her PhD in Economics at the University of Bristol and is now a Lecturer at the University of Exeter, said: “Our proposed reform could be adopted by individual schools, or groups of neighbouring schools (subject to consultation). Alternatively, the Government could revise the School Admissions Code to make the priority for pupils eligible for FSM (up to a quota) mandatory.”
Co-author Estelle Cantillon, Professor of Economics at the Free University of Brussels (ULB), added: “It was surprising how effective a simple FSM quota policy would be, significantly increasing access for disadvantaged families to effective schools, but having very little impact on overall school intakes, the number of pupils getting different assignments or the distance they would travel.”
Ruth Maisey, Education Programme Head at the Nuffield Foundation said “The gap in attainment between disadvantaged pupils and their peers is persistent despite schools’ efforts to improve teaching and learning. However, this research demonstrates that inroads could be made to reduce the gap by making modest changes to secondary school admissions criteria at very little cost. So, reforms to admissions criteria surely warrant careful consideration.”
Local Authorities used to set schools admissions criteria but changes in recent years, such as the introduction of Academies and Free Schools, mean most (more than 90% of the 3,250 secondary schools now decide this themselves). Families submit a list of their preferred schools, and oversubscribed ones, which applies to the majority of the strongest performers, select pupils according to their own admissions criteria, subject to the Government’s School Admissions Code. The deadline for submitting preferences was last Friday (31 October), and families will receive offers for school places in early March next year.
Report
‘Modifying school choice for more equitable access in England’ by Simon Burgess, Estelle Cantillon, Mariagrazia Cavallo, and Ellen Greaves