Ways to create equitable admissions system raised

Research has revealed the full extent of how pupils from higher-income families are favoured by high-performing secondary school admissions criteria, and suggests ways to make the admissions system more equitable.

The report, led by the University of Bristol and funded by the Nuffield Foundation, showed pupils from more affluent households are 43% more likely to be enrolled in a highly effective school than lower-income household pupils.

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.  

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.”