Tackling educational inequality - CentreForum

Tackling educational inequality
2.2 PUPIL LEVEL VARIABLES AT THE SCHOOL
LEVEL
All of these risk factors, when aggregated at the school level, impact on
school performance. The more children there are in a school who display
one or more of these characteristics, the more likely it is that the school
will be categorised as underperforming.
Deprivation
There is a strong relationship between the eligibility of the pupil intake
for free school meals and overall school performance. A recent National
Audit Office report found that schools with a high proportion of pupils
eligible for FSM were on average 2.7 times more likely than a school
with a low proportion to be in an Ofsted category. The school level
correlation between deprivation and attainment is shown for London
schools below. The effect of deprivation appears to be stronger at
secondary than primary school.
Figure 25 shows a more detailed school level analysis of the effect of
deprivation in schools on Key Stage 2 attainment. There is a clear and
consistent relationship between the two, with lower shares of pupils
reaching expected standards in more deprived schools compared to less
deprived schools. 28
Figure 25: Key Stage 2 attainment by FSM eligibility, in
London schools, 2005
100
80
% of pupils achieving
level 4+ in English
60
40
R 2 =0.313
20
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
% of pupils eligible for FSM
Source: DfES, ‘Families of Schools’, London Challenge, 2006
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