Educational disadvantage: how does England compare?

This report considers the performance of disadvantaged students and the size of the "disadvantage gap" in English education; how this compares with other advanced countries; and the factors that might explain England's relative performance based on a review of literature and international practices. The definition of ‘disadvantaged pupils’ in England, used in the report, is those eligible for Free School Meals (FSM). As this measure relates to pupils in England only, we estimate a similar group of disadvantaged pupils in other countries using the Economic, Social and Cultural Status (ESCS) index used in the PISA 2015 study. Using these estimations, we find that England has an FSM rate of 10.5 per cent, the 8th lowest of all countries included in this study. The gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers in England in mathematics is equivalent to one whole GCSE grade. This places England at 27 out of 44 jurisdictions in terms of the size of the socio-economic gap. In reading, the gap is around three-quarters of a GCSE grade (0.76) and around the average of all other countries in the report