Ethnicity

There is substantial variation in pupil attainment by ethnic group. We use the largest group, White British pupils, as the comparison group, meaning the gap for these pupils is set to zero in each year. For each phase we first show a snapshot of attainment (relative to White British pupils) for each ethnic group in both 2019 – the latest pre-pandemic year – and 2025.  

We then show the attainment of both disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils within each ethnicity, relative to non-disadvantaged White British pupils. This allows us to compare within-group gaps (not just between groups) and relative levels of attainment (for a given level of disadvantage). 

Across all phases, ethnicity gaps are highly uneven and change as pupils move through the education system. By age 11, and especially by GCSE and 16-19 education, most ethnic groups perform above White British pupils and students. Chinese and Indian pupils and students are consistently among the highest-attaining groups, while Gypsy Roma and Traveller of Irish Heritage pupils remain well behind in every phase. 

Between 2019 and 2025, most ethnic groups improved their attainment relative to White British pupils, although there were some signs of this trend reversing between 2024 and 2025. 

The chapter also shows that disadvantage gaps vary markedly within ethnic groups. White Irish and White British pupils and students repeatedly have some of the largest gaps, while groups such as Chinese, Black African, Pakistani and Bangladeshi pupils often have smaller gaps.  

Overall, this underlines the importance of considering ethnicity and socio-economic disadvantage together, rather than relying on broad averages alone. 

Early years foundation stage 

Early years development continues to vary widely by ethnicity. By the end of Reception, four of the 17 minority ethnic groups were ahead of White British pupils in 2025. While Chinese and White and Asian pupils have improved outcomes in 2025, Indian and White Irish pupils now have fairly similar levels of development to White British pupils, their leads having declined since 2019.  

Among the lower-attaining ethnic groups at age 5, two ethnicities stand out as having large gaps compared with White British pupils: Traveller of Irish Heritage pupils, whose gap widened to 8.8 months in 2025 (an increase of 0.8 months since 2019), and Gypsy Roma pupils, who trailed by 7.0 months despite an encouraging 1.9 month reduction since 2019, with half of this occurring in the last year alone. 

Looking back to 2019, many lower-attaining ethnic groups saw their gaps widen in 2025. However, there are notable exceptions: as well as Gypsy Roma pupils, pupils from Any Other White Background saw marked improvements, narrowing the gap by 1.3 months. In contrast, by 2025 children from Black African, Black Caribbean and Any Other Black Background fell further behind White British pupils by at least 0.5 months. 

Figure E1: Since 2019, early development gaps show a mixed picture as some lower-attaining ethnic groups narrowed the divide with White British pupils while others fell further behind 

In 2025, the gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged White Irish pupils remained the widest of any ethnic group, at 8.9 months. While non-disadvantaged White Irish pupils reached higher levels of development than almost all their peers – behind only Chinese and White/Asian children – disadvantaged White Irish pupils had the third-lowest development overall.  

White British pupils experienced the second-largest disadvantage gap, at 6.2 months. While non-disadvantaged White British pupils continued to be among the highest attainers, their disadvantaged peers had lower attainment than most other ethnic groups. They outperformed only disadvantaged White Irish pupils, and disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged Gypsy/Roma and Traveller of Irish Heritage pupils, who recorded the lowest outcomes overall. 

Children from Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds maintained some of the smallest disadvantage gaps in 2025, at 1.4 months and 1.7 months respectively. This reflects that disadvantaged Pakistani and Bangladeshi pupils typically have higher levels of development than similarly disadvantaged pupils from most other backgrounds (excluding Chinese and Indian pupils), while their non-disadvantaged peers tend to have relatively low scores. 

Overall, at age 5, early disadvantage gaps across ethnic groups are driven by high attainment for non-disadvantaged Chinese and White/Asian children and particularly low attainment for Traveller of Irish Heritage and Gypsy Roma pupils.  

Disadvantage gaps within ethnic groups are especially prominent among White Irish and White British children, reflecting that disadvantaged children in these communities fare relatively poorly upon starting school, while their non-disadvantaged peers perform relatively well. 

Figure E2: White Irish and White British pupils have the widest disadvantage gaps at age 5

Primary school 

By the time pupils reached age 11, many ethnic groups had improved their position relative to White British pupils. In 2025, only 6 ethnic groups had lower attainment levels, compared with 13 groups with lower attainment at age 5. 

The performance of Chinese pupils stands out, as they are ahead of White British pupils by well over one year (14.6 months). Conversely, the low attainment levels of Gypsy Roma and Traveller of Irish Heritage pupils is also striking, with these pupils trailing White British pupils by 17.6 and 17.2 months respectively. 

Considering changes between 2019 and 2025, nearly all higher-attaining ethnic groups extended their lead over White British pupils, with the exceptions of White Irish pupils (whose lead declined) and pupils of Any Other Asian Background whose attainment gap was unchanged. Chinese pupils showed the greatest improvement by almost 3 months.  

Among the six ethnic groups with lower attainment than White British pupils, half saw improvements in their relative position: Gypsy Roma, Black Caribbean and Any Other Black Background. Meanwhile, Traveller of Irish Heritage pupils and pupils of Any Other Ethnic Group fell further behind White British pupils, and there was no change in the gap for White and Black Caribbean pupils.  

Overall, this means that most ethnic groups have improved their attainment since before the pandemic relative to White British pupils and in the case of Pakistani pupils, have overtaken them.   

Figure E3: Between 2019 and 2025, most ethnic groups saw improvements in their attainment at end of primary school relative to White British pupils

 

By age 11, White Irish pupils, White and Asian pupils and White British pupils had the most significant disparities in attainment between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils, with gaps in the region of 12 to 18 months. 

Black African and Chinese pupils had the smallest disadvantage gaps of around 2 months. Remarkably, attainment is so high among disadvantaged Chinese pupils that they outperform non-disadvantaged pupils from all other ethnicities. 

There were also small gaps (of around 3 to 4 months) among Traveller of Irish Heritage and Gypsy Roma pupils but this reflects consistently low levels of attainment within these groups. Notably non-disadvantaged pupils within these groups had lower attainment than disadvantaged pupils from all other ethnicities. 

Figure E4: White Irish, White and Asian and White British pupils had the largest disadvantage gaps at the end of primary school 

 

Secondary school 

By the end of secondary school, most ethnic groups achieved higher GCSE grades than White British pupils in 2025. Most ethnicities also experienced greater improvements in attainment from 2019 to 2025 than White British pupils. 

Consistent with key stage 2, Chinese pupils were the highest-attaining group in 2025 (over two years ahead of White British pupils), followed by Indian pupils (who were 17.4 months ahead).  

Despite substantial GCSE improvements among Gypsy Roma and Traveller of Irish Heritage pupils since 2019, they remained the two lowest-attaining groups and well behind White British pupils, by 30.1 and 18.7 months, respectively. 

Nearly all ethnic groups improved their relative attainment over this period, with the biggest improvement among pupils of Any Other White background and several other groups overtaking White British pupils, including Pakistani and Black African pupils.  

The exceptions whose relative positions did not improve were: White and Black Caribbean pupils (who fell slightly further behind White British pupils), and White Irish and pupils of Any Other Asian background (whose leads slightly narrowed). 

Figure E5: Nearly all ethnicities have improved their GCSE attainment relative to White British pupils between 2019 and 2025, though this has started to reverse since 2024 

 

However, this general picture of improving ethnic attainment since 2019 masks that since 2024, this has started to go into reverse. Relative to White British pupils, most groups attained less well in 2025 than in 2024 except pupils of Any Other Mixed background and Any Other White background (who slightly extended their respective leads) and Chinese pupils (for whom there was no change). 

As at earlier phases, disadvantage gaps within ethnic groups also vary significantly. White Irish and Traveller of Irish Heritage pupils stand out for having the largest disadvantage gaps, each of at least two years and exceeding even the 22.8 month gap for White British pupils.  

At the other extreme, the smallest gaps were among Black African (at 4.8 months), Chinese (5.1 months) and Bangladeshi pupils (7.6 months). Just as at key stage 2, GCSE attainment is so high among disadvantaged Chinese pupils that they outperformed non-disadvantaged pupils from all other ethnicities.  

Conversely, non-disadvantaged Gypsy Roma pupils achieved lower GCSE results than disadvantaged pupils from all other ethnic groups except Traveller of Irish Heritage pupils.  

Figure E6: GCSE disadvantage gaps are particularly large within White Irish, Irish Traveller and White British pupils 

 

16-19 education 

In 16-19 education, the attainment pattern broadly continues the picture seen at GCSE: students from most ethnic backgrounds achieved higher average attainment across their best three qualifications than White British students in 2025. The exceptions were Gypsy Roma students, who were 5.0 grades behind, Traveller of Irish Heritage students, who were 3.8 grades behind, White and Black Caribbean students, who were 1.5 grades behind, and Black Caribbean students, who were 1.3 grades behind. 

As in earlier phases, the highest-attaining groups were well ahead of White British students, with Chinese and Indian students again standing out.  

Attainment relative to White British students improved for almost all ethnic groups between 2019 and 2025. White and Black Caribbean students were the only group whose performance did not improve compared with White British students. 

Figure E7: Almost all ethnicities have improved their 16-19 attainment relative to White British students since 2019 

  

Looking at disadvantage within ethnic groups shows that post-16 inequalities are not only between ethnicities, but also within them. Relative to non-disadvantaged White British students, disadvantaged Gypsy Roma and Traveller of Irish Heritage students were more than 6 grades behind. These groups therefore combine low overall attainment with very low outcomes among their disadvantaged students. 

In contrast, disadvantaged Chinese students were ahead of non-disadvantaged White British students, and more than 2 grades ahead of the next highest-performing disadvantaged group, Indian students. This mirrors the striking pattern seen at key stage 2 and GCSE, where disadvantaged Chinese students had attainment levels above many non-disadvantaged groups. 

The largest within-ethnicity disadvantage gaps were for White Irish students, at 5.7 grades, White British students, at 4.7 grades, Traveller of Irish Heritage students, at 4.0 grades, and White and Asian students, also at 4.0 grades. For White Irish and White British students in particular, these large gaps reflect a combination of relatively strong outcomes among non-disadvantaged students and much weaker outcomes among their disadvantaged peers. 

Overall, the 16-19 picture largely extends the pattern seen earlier in education. Most ethnic groups now achieve higher average attainment than White British students, while Gypsy Roma and Traveller of Irish Heritage students remain some distance behind. At the same time, disadvantage gaps remain especially large within some White and mixed ethnic groups. 

Figure E8: Disadvantaged gaps were particularly large amongst White Irish and White British students 

 

 

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