Commenting on today’s secondary school performance tables, Sir Kevan Collins, Chief Executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, said:
“We welcome signs of improvement for disadvantaged pupils in today’s tables. In particular, more disadvantaged pupils are getting good grades in English and Maths, and more are sitting and achieving the English Baccalaureate. However, other pupils have improved slightly more in English and Maths so the attainment gap remains.
“There are also worrying differences between the scores of disadvantaged pupils and others on the new Attainment 8 measure which looks at their results in 8 GCSE subjects. Poorer pupils are progressing less well in secondary school than better off pupils, as well as achieving poorer absolute results. Once again, however, we can see big regional differences in performance. Disadvantaged London pupils are making more progress than those elsewhere in the country, and the gap in English and Maths is ten percentage points lower in inner London than in most other regions. We urgently need to bridge these regional differences. The expansion of our Research Schools into Opportunity Areas, announced yesterday by the Secretary of State, will help to support schools working in some of the most challenging areas of the country to harness the potential of evidence to boost children’s outcomes.”