Geographic disadvantage gaps
This report includes interactive geographic tools for understanding how disadvantage gaps vary across England. For all phases and levels of geography we compare the attainment of disadvantaged pupils locally to the attainment of non-disadvantaged pupils nationally.
The data file showing geographic disadvantage gaps in 2023 and changes over time, including by Parliamentary Constituency, can be downloaded here.
Use the links below to explore disadvantage gap by region and local authority:
The role of ethnicity in geographic disadvantage gaps
The marked geographic variation in the attainment of disadvantaged pupils – with London clearly outperforming everywhere else – is a well-established finding. We have also previously shown that attainment varies by ethnicity and London’s more ethnically diverse pupil population could therefore be contributing towards its success. Previous research has looked at how regional attainment gaps for persistently disadvantaged pupils vary between white and ethnic minority pupils for earlier pre-pandemic cohorts. This has found that persistently disadvantaged white pupils tend to do poorly in all regions, whereas persistently disadvantaged minority ethnic pupils progress far better in London than similar pupils in any other region. This suggests that a key part of London’s success has been in breaking the link between poverty and low attainment for ethnic minority pupils – likely linked to the high aspirations and ambition of migrant families – whereas the low achievement of white persistently disadvantaged pupils appears to be a systemic problem facing the education system rather than a geographic one.