University progression for RBWM’s most deprived children shows slow improvement

The attainment gap is closing for the Borough's least well-off schoolchildren, new data shows – albeit slowly.

Numbers from Government records measure what proportion of children on free school meals end up going onto university and other forms of higher education.

Eligibility for free school meals is easy to measure and a clear indicator of deprivation.

The most recent figures cover 2023/24 and go back as far as 2005/06.

Oldest data shows that just 18 per cent of pupils receiving free school males made it to higher education – while 40 per cent of children not eligible for these (likely better off) went.

By contrast, last year the number of children receiving free school meals who were headed off to university was up to 30 per cent.

This marks notable if slow progress, with 20 years having elapsed since the beginning of the comparison.

Moreover, 2023/24 was by no means the best year for RBWM's most deprived youngsters.

In 2019/20 – during the thick of Covid – as many as 41 per cent of them went off to higher education.

Generally, numbers show a slow and gradual improvement year-on-year, with some fluctuations.

For example, 2022/23 was better than last year, with more than 34 per cent of free-school meals pupils going to university or similar places.

Data also measures the ‘progression rate gap.’ Lower is better – it means the more deprived pupils and less deprived ones are closer together in terms of education outcomes.

The highest gap was recorded in 2011/12 and 2012/13, which both showed a gap of nearly 30 per cent.

By contrast, the best year was 2019/20, with only a 10 per cent gap – again during those key Covid years.

There were some significant changes that year, In March 2020, schools across the UK closed to most pupils due to the first national lockdown.

GCSEs and A-levels were cancelled, replaced by teacher-assessed grades (with a controversial algorithm later abandoned).

But it was not as though all pupils did poorly that year, closing the gap. Indeed, children not receiving free school meals progressed at a rate of nearly 52 per cent, the highest figure.

On the whole, progression rates for this group has fluctuated far less than the more deprive group, mainly showing a smooth trend upward – ie ever greater proportions of students heading off to university.

High achievers

Also interesting is the number of pupils who went to ‘top’ educational establishments with higher entry requirements, known as ‘high tariff.’

There is no data for 2005 through to 2008, but by the end of 2009 there was – one per cent of the pupils on free school meals in the Borough had gone to one of these ‘high tariff’ places.

By 2024, this had gone up to about eight per cent.

Again, this number has generally increased gradually with some fluctuations. These fluctuations seem small, but given the generally low percentages, start to look more significant.

For example, the high traffic progression rate for pupils receiving free school meals went from six per cent in 2017/18, dropped to two per cent in 2018/19, then jumped up again to seven per cent in 2019/20.

The rates for young people not receiving free school meals have hovered around 13-17 per cent, hitting a low in 2012/13 (10 per cent) and a high of 20 per cent a decade later in 2022/23.

Last year, it was 17 per cent – making a 10 per cent ‘gap’ between the two groups. It’s the lowest gap recorded since 2010/11.