Yesterday the Department for Education launched a consultation
“Analysing family circumstances and education”.[1] The consultation
document puts the challenges facing educators into sharp focus:
- The Department for Education’s new definition of Ordinary
Working Families (OWFs) fails to identify a group that is
educationally disadvantaged.
- The case for a continued focus on the Pupil Premium group is
clear and should be prioritised. The differences in outcomes
between children from OWFs and their more affluent peers are
relatively small compared to the large penalties experienced by
disadvantaged pupils.
- Grammar schools are dominated by the most affluent, squeezing
out the poorest. An expansion in selection is unlikely to benefit
OWFs in the way that the Government suggests.
The Department for Education’s definition of OWFs identifies in
effect the 'average child' - the group occupies the centre of the
income distribution of children in maintained schools. Crucially,
however, the child of the OWF experiences attainment and progress
outcomes that are above average.
This comes about because the slightly smaller group of children
we typically think of as 'poor' have outcomes that are so low
that they pull down the average for all children - these
disadvantaged children are especially vulnerable in an
educational sense as well as in a socio-economic sense.
This can be seen clearly from the much larger gap in attainment
and progress between children eligible for the pupil premium and
those in the bottom income decile, than is found at any of the
boundaries between income deciles (including the boundary between
OWFs and families with income above the median). Disadvantaged
pupils are a distinct group based on attainment whereas OWFs are
not.
What this means for education policy is that the pupil premium
and free school meals for deprived children are effectively
targeted at need; they reach a group that is distinctly
vulnerable.
EPI's previous research shows that the most persistently
disadvantaged pupils are distinctly vulnerable within the pupil
premium group, with large and increasing progress gaps in
secondary schools. This makes it clear that it would be wrong to
shift our focus away from the existing disadvantaged groups,
because we have yet to overcome the profound challenges they face
during childhood.
The Department for Education’s analysis also demonstrates that
selective schools continue to be dominated by the most affluent.
Over half of pupils in selective schools are in families with
income above the national median and fewer than one in ten are
eligible for the Pupil Premium. The proportion of pupils in
selective schools that are from OWFs being similar to other
schools is not surprising given the range of pupils and
attainment that this group covers.
EPI’s research on selection shows that as the number of grammar
school places increases, the benefits for those that secure a
place falls and the penalty for those that miss out increases.
This is key. The mathematics of selection mean that the majority
of OWFs will not get into grammar schools even in highly
selective areas - indeed, the DfE's data show that over half of
the places are taken by families with above-median income, and by
definition only a minority (typically around a quarter) of
children can get into selective schools.
Commenting on the consultation, Jo Hutchinson, EPI’s
Director for Social Mobility and Vulnerable Learners
said:
“The pupil premium and free school meals for deprived
children are effectively targeted at need; they reach a group
that is distinctly vulnerable. The Department for Education’s own
analysis shows that it would be a terrible mistake to shift our
focus away from the existing disadvantaged groups. We have yet to
overcome the profound challenges they face during
childhood.
“There are simply too many Ordinary Working Families for any
potential winners from selection to outnumber the losers, and, as
the Department for Education’s own data show, they are not a
particularly vulnerable group to begin with.”
“We must acknowledge the implications of this new analysis,
and not be side-tracked by politically convenient soundbites that
side-step the full truth about grammar schools, and about the
impact of poverty on children's education.”
