Disadvantage
Throughout the stages of childhood, economic disadvantage can negatively influence children’s learning in a variety of ways. These can accumulate over time to pull down the attainment of a disadvantaged child and increase the likelihood that they will fall behind their peers.
In this section we therefore consider the attainment gaps between disadvantaged pupils and their non-disadvantaged peers, using eligibility for free school meals as a proxy for economic disadvantage. More details can be found in the boxout below.
Early years foundation stage
Disadvantaged pupils have, on average, lower attainment than other pupils and this gap widens as pupils progress through their education. In 2023, the disadvantage gap among pupils aged 5 was 4.6 months, down slightly from 4.8 months in 2022. However, the gap is still considerably wider than in the five years prior to the pandemic.
Figure D1: The disadvantage gap for pupils in reception year narrowed in 2023, though remains well above levels in the years prior to the pandemic
Primary school
29 per cent of pupils are classified as disadvantaged by the end of primary school. In 2023 the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers at the end of primary school was 10.3 months, a similar size to 2022. This means that the gap is still over a month wider than it was prior to the pandemic and remains at its widest since 2011. It’s important to note that, although the disadvantage gap has widened considerably following the pandemic, it was already beginning to widen in 2019, prior to the pandemic.
Figure D2: The disadvantage gap at the end of primary school remains at levels significantly higher than prior to the pandemic
Secondary school
One-quarter of pupils are defined as disadvantaged by the end of secondary school, a smaller proportion than at the end of primary school. This is because, as children get older, their parents are more likely to enter work and exceed the earnings threshold for free school meal eligibility.
By the end of secondary, the disadvantage gap widened from 18.8 months in 2022 to 19.2 months in 2023. Similar to trends in the primary phase, the disadvantage gap at the end of secondary school is at its largest since 2011. Following good initial progress in narrowing the gap between 2011 and 2014 (from 19.7 months to 18.2 months), the gap then remained at around 18 months in the years leading up to the pandemic. The gap is now 1.1 months larger than prior to the pandemic.
Figure D3: The disadvantage gap in GCSE English and maths widened in 2023 to its largest level since 2011
16-19 education
In the 16-19 phase, around a fifth of students are defined as disadvantaged based on their free school meal status at the end of key stage 4. This proportion is slightly lower than in earlier phases mainly because, although participation in education or training is compulsory until age 18, around 10 per cent of 16 and 17 year olds do not participate, and disadvantaged students are over-represented amongst this group[1][2]. This figure has also increased since the pandemic when only 8 per cent were not participating in education or training.
Prior to the pandemic, the 16-19 disadvantage gap (expressed in grades – see boxout above) was relatively stable and closed slightly in 2019. However, the gap was still greater than three grades across students’ best three qualifications. In 2022, the 16-19 disadvantage gap had widened significantly to 3.5 grades, though this may have been partly due to ongoing adjustments to assessments following the pandemic (see boxout below). In 2023 the gap returned to the same level as in 2019, at 3.2 grades.
Figure D4: The 16-19 disadvantage gap across students best three qualifications returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2023[3]
When considering gaps within level 3 qualification types we find that disadvantage gaps have increased since 2019 for A levels, Applied General and other level 3 qualifications. The increase was most significant in applied general qualifications, which saw an increase of 0.12 grades since 2019.
Figure D5: Disadvantage gaps by 16-19 qualification have narrowed slightly since 2022, but remain a little wider than prior to the pandemic.[4]
Persistent disadvantage gaps
In our previous reports we have shown not only that disadvantaged pupils tend to do worse than their peers but that those who are disadvantaged for the longest time do worst of all.
Our research has also shown that pupils have been increasingly experiencing disadvantage for longer periods and this trend emerged even prior to the pandemic and cost of living crisis. This is concerning and consistent with wider evidence of rising child poverty.[5]
Here we consider attainment gaps for persistently disadvantaged pupils.
Primary and secondary school
The persistent disadvantage gap at the end of primary school in 2023 was 11.6 months, the smallest gap since our series began in 2011. However, it should be noted that this may be due to changes in the composition of the persistently disadvantaged group (see boxout above). The proportion of pupils aged 11 classified as persistently disadvantaged increased from 11 per cent in 2019, to 14 per cent in 2022 and to 16 per cent in 2023. We cannot, therefore, conclude that the fall in the key stage 2 gap equates to an improvement in outcomes for the most disadvantaged pupils.
The persistent disadvantage gap at the end of secondary school was 22.9 months in 2023 – a small increase since 2022, and the second highest level in our series, after 2018. However, as at key stage 2 the composition of this group will increasingly include students who would not be flagged as persistently disadvantaged were it not for the UC protections. This will have also contributed to the rise in the proportion of key stage 4 pupils identified as persistently disadvantaged from 9 per cent in 2019 to 11 per cent in 2022 and 12 per cent in 2023. Though this increase is not as stark as it is for primary aged pupils, it nevertheless suggests that the increase in the key stage 4 gap observed in 2023 may in fact be understated in our series. The following section aims to give further insight into how outcomes for persistently disadvantaged pupils may actually have changed in recent years.
Figure D6: Persistently disadvantaged pupils are almost one year behind by the end of primary school and almost two years behind by the end of secondary school, though the gaps in 2023 may be understated
16-19 education
The 16-19 persistent disadvantage gap will now have started to be affected by free school meal protections during the roll out of Universal credit. However, the effect will be less pronounced than in pre-16 measures, as the free school meal data we use post-16 is on a two or three year lag, meaning a much smaller proportion of years are affected.
As with our headline 16-19 disadvantage gap measure, the persistent disadvantage gap narrowed in 2023. Whilst the headline gap returned to pre-pandemic levels, the persistent disadvantage gap narrowed more quickly and now stands at 3.9 grades. Although this narrowing is a promising shift in the right direction, persistently disadvantaged students are still considerably further behind non-disadvantaged students.
Figure D7: The persistent disadvantage gap in 16-19 education narrowed in 2023 and is now the smallest recorded gap since the start of our time series in 2017
Adjusting for the impact of Universal Credit
One way to explore the impact of UC protections is to remove cases where FSM eligibility could potentially have been affected by the protections. To achieve this we have only considered students’ FSM eligibility prior to the roll out of universal credit protections. For the 2023 cohort this means the last five years of primary school (years 2014 – 2018). For consistency we have used the last five years of primary school for earlier cohorts as well, even though they will have been less affected by UC protections.
We then identify secondary school age pupils who were FSM eligible for at least four out of five of these years. This group won’t overlap exactly with our main persistent disadvantage group. In particular, it will not capture those pupils who have fallen into poverty during secondary school, and may identify some pupils from families that became better off during secondary school. Nevertheless, this measure should provide a more consistent indication of recent trends in the gap for the most disadvantaged pupils.
Using this alternative measure, we find that the gap for some of the most persistently disadvantaged secondary age pupils grew by 0.9 months between 2019 and 2023 (compared with just 0.2 months on our main persistent disadvantaged measure), and by 0.29 months between 2022 and 2023 (compared with 0.16 months on our main measure). This suggests that our main measure may be underestimating the worsening of attainment among the poorest pupils in recent years.
Figure D8: An alternative persistent disadvantage gap measure suggests more GCSE gap widening for the poorest pupils since 2019
It is not possible to create a similar adjustment for primary age pupils, due to the 2023 cohort having only two years of FSM eligibility that were unaffected by UC protections. However, it is likely that, as we have shown for secondary age pupils, the persistent disadvantage gap for primary age pupils (in figure D6) is likely to be less positive than our main measure indicates. In the 16-19 phase, the impact of UC protections on our persistent disadvantage measure is still relatively small, so we don’t produce an adjusted measure here.
[1] Department for Education, ‘Participation in Education, Training and Employment Age 16 to 18, Calendar Year 2022’.
[2] ‘House of Lords – Skills for Every Young Person – Youth Unemployment Committee’.
[3] Due to change in definitions by the Department for Education, the cohorts of students finishing 16-19 study in 2020 and 2021 were not directly comparable, so we have not shown the disadvantage gap for these years on our chart.
[4] Disadvantage gaps by qualification type are based on average points per qualification rather than total points over students’ best three qualifications.
[5] Department for Work and Pensions, ‘Households Below Average Income: an analysis of the UK income distribution: FYE 1995 to FYE 2023’.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY geographic disadvantage gaps