Brighton and Hove (B&H) City Council have implemented a new school admissions policy (hereafter, FSM-priority admission policy), which should increase the chance of admission to oversubscribed schools for FSM-eligible pupils. FSM-eligible pupils are given higher priority for admission into their preferred secondary schools, up to a quota (30%), meaning that they would have an increased chance of securing a school place of their choice. The aim of B&H City Council was to smooth the percentage of pupils eligible for FSM across maintained schools in the city (to around 30%, the local authority average). By increasing access to oversubscribed schools, which are typically more effective, more FSM-eligible pupils could receive access to effective schools. The policy would also mean that pupils in the most deprived catchment areas of B&H with limited number of secondary schools could potentially secure a place in a popular school outside their own catchment area.
The policy has been applied to all six Local Authority-maintained secondary schools in B&H (see here for brief descriptions of the B&H admissions policies). Parents under the new policy submitted their choices in October 2024 and were notified of their child/children’s secondary school allocations in March 2025, and this cohort of students started secondary school in September 2025. The EEF-funded evaluation will encompass the 2025/2026 Year 7 cohort through to their Year 11 outcomes in 2030.
The EEF is commissioning this evaluation as the policy has potential to reduce attainment gaps between socio-economically disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils. Results from the evaluation could support with decision-making for local authorities in England that are considering implementing a similar policy. As such, we are also particularly interested in understanding the enablers and barriers of effective implementation of the policy, its perceived impact from sector leaders, teachers and parents, as well as any unintended (positive and negative) consequences on school structures and practices.
Useful insights and lessons learned can also be gathered to support the Council in further refining and improving the approach as it continues to expand.
A team from University of Exeter, UCL and University of Sussex, led by Ellen Greaves (University of Exeter), will carry out the independent evaluation. The team were appointed following a competitive open commissioning process.
The impact evaluation will be a quasi-experimental design, specifically Synthetic Control Method. This will compare pupil outcomes including GCSE attainment and attendance in B&H to those of a synthetic comparison group drawn from other, similar local authorities after the implementation of the new admissions approach.
The impact evaluation will be accompanied by an implementation and process evaluationAn IPE is used to understand how and why an intervention has (or has not) been successful. Data is analysed to explore programme quality, reach, adaptation and differentiation, as well as setting fidelity and responsiveness to the trial design. which will use a mixed methods design to explore how the approach is delivered in practice, the factors that influence its delivery and success, and how these affect pupil outcomes.
This will include reviewing existing data and documentation, as well as collecting primary data from local authority stakeholders, secondary school provider staff and students in Brighton and Hove through surveys, structured interviews and focus groups.
The final evaluation report is expected to be published in May 2032. We also expect to publish interim findings in Summer 2027 and Spring/Summer 2029.
The evaluation findings will be published in three stages:
- Interim Report 1 (Summer 2027): early findings including experiences of Year 7 pupils and initial analysis of school choice and segregation data.
- Interim Report 2 (Summer 2029): will include experiences of pupils in Years 7 – 9, along with attendance and teacher recruitment and retention data for these year groups.
- Final Report (Summer 2032): will focus on GCSE results for Year 11 pupils and bring together all findings from across the evaluation.
Conflict of interest
The evaluation team were appointed following a competitive tendering process open to all members of the EEF Evaluator Panel. Research proposals were independently scored and discussed by several members of the EEF evaluation team. More information on the EEF approach to evaluation be found here.
Interview guides and structures was shared with EEF and an independent study advisory board to ensure the framing remained impartial. Information sheets are available from the research team on request..