Grammar schools in England: a new approach to analysing their intakes and outcomes

Abstract

This paper forms part of a larger investigation of indicators of disadvantage and how they may be improved or supplemented in order to track school intakes and results better. Here our evolving dataset based on the National Pupil Database in England over 11 years is used to assess the impact of selective schools. At time of writing, the UK government is planning to increase the number of pupils attending state-funded selective grammar schools via a number of routes. They claim that this will assist overall standards, reduce the poverty attainment gap and so aid social mobility. Using the full 2015 cohort of pupils in England, this paper shows how stratified the pupils attending grammar schools actually are (worse than previous estimates) in terms of poverty, ethnicity, language, special educational needs, and even their age in year. It also shows that the results from grammar schools are no better than expected, once these differences are taken into account. There is no evidence base for a policy of increasing selection; rather the UK government should consider phasing the existing selective schools out.