Executive summary
Education is a key driver of social mobility and reducing educational inequality is central to this
goal. In this report, we track the performance of high-achieving pupils from poor backgrounds
through the education system and compare their trajectories with those of their more advantaged
peers. Specifically, we consider the trajectories of poor children who make it to high-status (or
‘elite’) universities (defined as Russell Group institutions or other institutions with similarly high
Research Assessment Exercise scores). We also consider the later attainment of poor children
who have initially high, average and low attainment at age 7.
We are mindful of the methodological challenge of identifying the trajectories of particular groups
of higher-achieving pupils whilst accounting for the statistical problem of regression to the mean
(RTM). RTM occurs when initially high-achieving pupils look as if they are falling behind over time
simply because their initial test scores were a poor representation of their true ability as they
happened to be ‘lucky’ on the day of the test. This work aims to build on previous studies that have
tried to address this issue, taking into account potential measurement issues to understand how
initially high-achieving children from less advantaged backgrounds progress in the education
system and to determine at what point they appear to fall back relative to their more advantaged
peers.
We use data on a cohort of children born in 1991–92. The data we use are the linked National
Pupil Database (NPD) – Individual Learner Records (ILR) – Higher Education Statistics Agency
(HESA) data. These data enable us to follow children through primary and secondary school, from
Key Stage 1 to Key Stage 4, as well as observing their participation and performance at Key Stage
5, and whether they went to university at age 18 or 19, including which university they attended.
Our measures of the socio-economic background of the child are school type, the child’s free
school meal (FSM) status during secondary school and an index of socio-economic status (SES)
that combines FSM eligibility with a variety of measures of the deprivation of their neighbourhood.
We examine differences in attainment on the basis of each of these measures of SES separately.
Our sample includes all children who attended a state primary school and sat Key Stage 1 and 2
tests, including students who went on to study at a private secondary school.
Defining those who are ‘high achieving’ is a key part of our analysis. We use a series of measures
at each Key Stage to indicate high achievement. A minority of students are defined as high
achieving using our definitions. For example:
- Just under 10% of our sample attend an ‘elite’ university.
- At Key Stage 5, 11% of our sample have at least three A or B grades at A level.
- At Key Stage 4, 37% of our sample achieved five or more A*–C grades in EBacc GCSE
subjects. - At Key Stages 1 and 2, around 18–19% achieve above the expected level in both
English/reading and maths (the expected level is level 2 at Key Stage 1 and level 4 at Key
Stage 2).
Findings
Students from poorer backgrounds are far less likely to achieve these high levels of attainment.
For example:
- Only 8.9% of the most deprived children reach level 3 in both reading and maths at Key Stage 1, compared with 27% of the least deprived children.
- At Key Stage 2, 7.1% of those who always claim FSM attain level 5 in English and maths,
compared with 19% of those who do not always claim FSM. - At Key Stage 4, 92% of selective state school children have at least five good GCSEs in
EBacc subjects, compared with 33% of non-selective state school students.
In addition, children from poorer backgrounds who are high attaining at age 7 are more likely to fall off a high attainment trajectory than children from richer backgrounds. We find that high-achieving children from the most deprived families perform worse than lower-achieving students from the
least deprived families by Key Stage 4. Conversely, lower-achieving affluent children catch up with
higher-achieving deprived children between Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4.
This suggests that early success at Key Stages 1 and 2 is a much better predictor of later success
for richer students. It also suggests that there are substantial numbers of children from poorer
backgrounds falling behind. This is reflected particularly by the very small numbers of children
from deprived families who attend elite institutions. For example, of those born in 1991–92, only
921 pupils, or 2.8%, who always claimed FSM throughout secondary school went to an elite
university (out of 33,039 children who always claimed FSM), compared with 40,165 pupils, or
9.9%, who never claimed FSM throughout secondary school (out of 406,596 children).
This highlights the large differences in the likelihood of going to an elite institution between
children from richer and poorer backgrounds. These gaps are particularly large for state school
students from the most compared with the least deprived families and those from private
secondary schools compared with non-selective state secondary schools. However, these
differences can largely be explained by the higher levels of achievement of pupils from more
affluent backgrounds.
For example, accounting for a rich set of measures of attainment at either Key Stage 4 or Key
Stage 5 enables us to explain a substantial proportion of the difference in participation rates, and
accounting for other background characteristics and prior attainment at every Key Stage reduces
this gap even further. The difference between pupils who were ever or always eligible for free
school meals compared with those who were not becomes small and is no longer statistically
significant, but there remain small but significant gaps between the most and least deprived state
school students and between those from private schools and those from non-selective state
schools. For example, we find that young people from the least deprived backgrounds are 5.9 percentage points more likely to attend a high-status university than those from the most deprived backgrounds, even after accounting for a rich set of controls. Similarly, those attending private secondary schools are 4.3 percentage points more likely to attend a high-status institution than those who attend non-selective state secondary schools (although this difference can largely be
eliminated by the inclusion of controls for individual measures of SES in addition to school type).
Further research could usefully explore the drivers of these small remaining gaps.
Interestingly, students from poorer backgrounds who do make it into an elite university tend to
have lower academic achievement than their more advantaged peers in elite institutions. For
example, of those who enrol in an elite university, 47% of the most deprived children achieve at
least three A or B grades at A level, compared with 73% of the least deprived children.
There are a number of possible explanations for this. First, it may be that poorer students tend to
attend somewhat less elite universities within the group of high-status institutions that we consider.
We found some evidence to support this: the difference in grades between students from richer
and poorer backgrounds within a narrower set of elite institutions was smaller, but significant
differences remained, especially between state school students from the most and least deprived
backgrounds. Second, it could be that this result is being driven by students from less deprived
families exceeding their grade offers to a greater extent than deprived students. Third, it is
possible that some elite universities may be using contextualised admissions processes and
accounting for the circumstances of children when making entry offers. Further research could
usefully explore the potential role of contextual admissions policies in reducing the socio-economic gap in participation at high-status institutions.
Although the socio-economic differences in the likelihood of attending an elite institution are
relatively small once we account for prior attainment, many fewer children from poorer
backgrounds are achieving – and importantly maintaining – these high levels of achievement. For
example, of the 7,853 children from the most deprived homes who achieve level 5 in English and
maths at age 11, only 906 make it to an elite university. If they had the same trajectory as a child
from one of the least deprived families, then 3,066 of these children would be likely to go to an
elite university, suggesting that 2,160 children are falling behind.
Policy implications
The period between Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4 appears to be a crucial time to ensure that
higher-achieving pupils from poor backgrounds remain on a high achievement trajectory. Given
the importance of attainment at the end of secondary school in explaining higher education
participation decisions, this highlights the potential importance of secondary school as a period of
intervention for policymakers interested in increasing participation at high-status universities
amongst young people from more deprived backgrounds.
While children from the most deprived families are less likely to attend an elite university, those
who do attend have lower prior attainment, on average, than their more affluent counterparts. One possible explanation for this is that children from more deprived backgrounds are less likely to
apply to elite institutions. It is therefore important that universities and policymakers provide students from poorer backgrounds with advice to encourage greater numbers of applications to
elite institutions, as those with the top grades stand a good chance of getting in if they do apply.