Chapter 10: Education - Equality and Human Rights Commission

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Chapter 10: Education
The overall attainment gap between those eligible for FSMs and those who are
not appears to have narrowed since 2006, but evidence of a trend in this direction
remains tentative. 65
Only 17% of children with special educational needs get five good
GCSEs including English and Maths in England, compared to 61% of
children without identified special needs. This does not just apply to people with
learning disabilities: only 33% of children whose primary need related to visual
impairment attained this level.
The differences in performance at age 16 partly reflect the fact that
some of the educational inequalities observed in early years continue
to widen in the course of their schooling. In particular, children from
deprived backgrounds become more likely to have low relative performance
as they get older, even those who start out well. Results at age 16 are therefore
influenced both by how well each group is doing early on in their schooling and
how well they progress.
Chapter 10
What we know about the overall situation and trends
In 2008/09, 51% of pupils in maintained schools in England achieved 5+ good
GCSEs or equivalent including English/Welsh and Maths, 66 as did 48% of those in
publicly funded schools in Scotland, 67 and 47% of those in all schools in Wales. 68
65
Hills, J. et al. 2010. Footnote 72 states that “These data need to be treated with
some caution because of the change in socio-economic classification and the
fact that parental occupational data are reported by young people rather than by
parents. There is year-on-year fluctuation and it is impossible to know whether
the narrowing of the gap in 2006 represents ‘noise’ in the data or a longer-term
trend. Nevertheless, the data show a modest improvement over the period for
those from routine/unskilled manual backgrounds that has had the effect of
reducing inequality to some extent.”
66
DCSF 2010b. Statistical First Release, Key Stage 4 Attainment by Pupil
Characteristics, in England 2008/09. Statistical First Release 34/2009.
Available at: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000900/
SFR34_2009Revised.pdf Accessed 18/08/2010.
67
Equality and Human Rights Commission analysis of data provided by the
Scottish Government.
68
Welsh Assembly Government 2010b. Examination Results in Wales, 2008/09
(Revised). Statistics for Wales. First Release SDR 188/2009(R). Available at:
http://wales.gov.uk/docs/statistics/2010/100514sdr1882009ren.pdf. Accessed
04/08/2010.