A new report by the Education Policy Institute
(EPI), Access to high performing schools in
England, looks at the density of high
quality secondary school places across England, comparing high
quality places in 2015 with 2010 in order to identify whether
geographic access to high performing schools is improving.
This report is important because widening access to high
performing schools is crucial if the government’s policy
objective of improving social mobility is to be met. Indeed, the
Department for Education’s recently published Social Mobility
Action Plan has a strong emphasis on ‘place’, and states that
‘where you live will affect where you get to in life – while in
some areas opportunity can become self-perpetuating, in other
communities, disadvantage can become entrenched’.
Key Findings
Availability of high performing secondary schools:
-
Access to high performing schools in England has become
more geographically unequal over the period
2010-2015. This is in spite of government
policies aimed at improving school performance outside higher
performing areas such as London. Virtually all local
authorities with consistently low densities of high
performing school places are in the North, particularly the
North East and Yorkshire and the Humber. In Blackpool and
Hartlepool local authorities there are no high performing
secondary school places.
- From 2010 to 2015, local authorities with
consistently good access to high performing secondary schools saw
the proportion of pupils with access to such schools rise from
49% in 2010 to 58% in 2015. Many of these areas are in
London.
-
However, in areas with consistently low densities of
high performing school places, the proportion of pupils with
access to such places fell from just 6% in 2010 to 5% in
2015. These include areas such as Blackpool,
Hartlepool, Barnsley, Redcar and Cleveland, Knowsley, and
Middlesborough.
- When analysing access to schools at a disaggregated,
neighbourhood level, in both 2010 and 2015 we
also find one fifth of local areas in England had no high
performing secondary schools within reasonable travel
distance. This means pupils in these neighbourhoods
are unlikely to have had any opportunity to access a place at a
high performing school.
Examining the 20 local authorities with the largest increases in
the density of high performing secondary school places, and the
20 local authorities with the greatest decreases, the
widening geographic inequality in access to high performing
schools is also evident:
-
Of the 20 local areas with the biggest increases in
high performing school places, 16 of which were in London, the
proportion of such places rose significantly from 36% to 60%
from 2010-2015. The largest riser was Harrow.
-
However, of the 20 areas with the largest fall in high
performing places, none of which were in London, the proportion
of high performing places fell from 31% in 2010 to 20% in
2015. The biggest faller was Blackburn with Darwen.
Opportunity Areas:
- There are large areas of the country which currently have no
access to a high performing school. Of particular note is the
North East, which as a region has virtually no high performing
schools. Despite this, no part of the region has
been selected as one of the government’s Opportunity
Areas.
- If the government believes that introducing the Opportunity
Areas initiative in the North East would address the lack of
access to a high performing school, then our
analysis suggests that there should be one in this
region.
Commenting on the report, Natalie Perera, Executive
Director and Head of Research at the Education Policy Institute,
said:
"This report highlights the acute shortage of high quality
secondary school places in areas such as the North of England. No
progress has been made in addressing this issue since 2010, and
as a result successive cohorts of children in many parts of the
country are being let down. The government needs to do more to
spread success out of areas such as London and the South East. If
"Opportunity Areas" are the government's answer to social
mobility "cold spots", then they are needed in areas such as the
North East of England, where one is yet to be allocated."
Rt Hon. , Executive Chairman of the
Education Policy Institute, said:
"It is shocking to see that over recent years the access to
high quality secondary school places in England has become even
more unequal. In one fifth of local areas, children cannot access
quality secondary school places. Government rhetoric about
spreading opportunity is not being matched by experience in areas
such as the North, North East and parts of the Midlands.
In the best performing parts of London, around 70% of
secondary school places are of high quality. But in areas such as
Blackpool and Hartlepool there are no high quality places, and in
many of the worst access areas the access problem has been
getting worse. is clearly right to focus
on this challenge - but this report shows just how much work the
government has to do."
