Local authority gaps
Early years foundation stage
Nationally the disadvantage gap at the end of reception year was 4.8 months in 2022.
Of the twenty local authorities (LAs) with the smallest disadvantage gaps at age 5, three-quarters were in London – the exceptions being Kingston-Upon-Hull (with a disadvantage gap of 2.9 months), North East Lincolnshire (3.4 months), Rutland, Bracknell Forest and Slough (all with gaps of 3.5 months). The smallest gaps nationally were in Hackney, Newham, and Waltham Forest, at 1.6 months, 2.0 months, and 2.3 months respectively. Other London boroughs also generally outperformed the rest of the country, highlighting how the effects of socioeconomic disadvantage on educational outcomes in London are smaller relative to the rest of the country. One notable exception was Havering, with a gap of 6.2 months – well above than the national gap of 4.8 months, though still below the three local authorities with the largest disadvantage gaps: Cumbria, West Berkshire, and Sefton (with gaps of 7.6 months, 7.0 months, and 6.8 months respectively). The gap in Cumbria is a full six months wider than in the best-performing local authority of Hackney.
Looking at changes over 2019 to 2022, Sefton also had the second biggest increase in the gap (of 2.4 months) after Richmond–upon–Thames (+3.0 months), while Halton and York were the LAs that managed to reduce the gap the most (each by 1.5 months). Only about one–fifth of local authorities managed to narrow the gap compared with 2019.
Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0
Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2023
Primary School
Nationally the disadvantage gap at the end of primary school was 10.3 months in 2022.
Consistent with the regional breakdowns, most of the LAs with the narrowest disadvantage gaps at the end of primary school in 2022 were London boroughs – comprising seventeen of the twenty best-performing authorities (the exceptions being Luton, Slough and Warrington). Newham had the smallest gap by far in 2022 at only 1.2 months, followed by Redbridge with a gap of 2.7 months and then Hammersmith and Fulham, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest and Camden (all with gaps of 2.8 months). At the other extreme, the Isle of Wight had the largest gap at 15.5 months, followed by West Berkshire and East Riding of Yorkshire (both with gaps of 13.9 months).
Looking at changes over the period 2019 to 2022, Redbridge is also one of the LAs that managed to reduce the gap the most since 2019, narrowing it by 1.9 months, second only to Windsor and Maidenhead (with a reduction of 2.7 months) and Hackney (-2.5 months). Kensington and Chelsea stands out as its gap widened by 7.0 months in just three years, making it the only local authority to go from having disadvantaged students outperforming their peers to falling behind during this period.
Looking across phases, disadvantaged pupils in some localities tend to fair better (relatively) at the end of primary than at early years. Specifically, Newham, Redbridge, Hammersmith and Fulham, Tower Hamlets, Camden and Richmond-upon-Thames all have smaller gaps for pupils aged 11 than for pupils aged 5. The three local authorities whose gaps increased the most across these phases were Isle of Wight (with a widening of 10.5 months), Reading (+9.7 months) and Bracknell Forest (+9.5 months).
Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0
Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2023
Secondary School
Nationally the disadvantage gap at the end of secondary school was 18.8 months in 2022.
The local authority breakdowns provide yet more evidence on the extent of London’s outperformance for its disadvantaged pupils, relative to other areas. London boroughs comprise nineteen of the twenty local authorities with the smallest GCSE disadvantage gaps in 2022. Slough is the exception, with a gap of 11.5 months. Consistent with earlier phases, Newham had the smallest key stage 4 gap (3.8 months), followed by its neighbouring boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Redbridge, with gaps of 4.3 and 4.4 months respectively. Newham is notable in its success in consistently achieving the smallest gaps across primary and secondary phases, and ranks second only to Hackney in reception year. Likewise Slough consistently has one of the smallest disadvantage gaps across phases outside of London. Conversely, Torbay was the LA where disadvantaged pupils were furthest behind in 2022, with a gap of 27.7 months, followed by Kingston–upon–Hull (26.7 months) and Blackpool (26.6 months). Whilst Torbay has similar levels of deprivation among its pupil population as England as a whole, the proportions of disadvantaged pupils are much higher in Kingston-upon-Hull (33.1 per cent) and Blackpool (41.9 per cent) – placing these two local authorities within the fifth most deprived in the country.2 Four out of five of the authorities with the largest gaps were coastal.
Looking at changes over the period 2019 to 2022, Rutland saw the biggest increase in its gap (by 10.2 months), followed by Trafford (+8.5 months) and Kingston-upon-Hull (+7.2 months). The borough of Westminster, which had the fourth smallest gap in 2022, was also amongst the local authorities where the gap increased the most since 2019 (with an increase of 4.0 months, from just 0.5 months in 2019 to 4.5 months in 2022). Plymouth, Merton, and Lewisham were the LAs with the biggest reductions in the gap since 2019. Consistent with the regional picture, there are more local authorities at key stage 4 that narrow the gap between 2019 and 2022 than we see at earlier key stages.
Whilst no local authority had a smaller gap for pupils aged 16 than pupils aged 11, several have increases of under one month, namely: Westminster, Ealing, Hounslow, Wandsworth and Hillingdon. At the other extreme, the biggest increases over the course of secondary school occurred in Blackpool (with a gap-widening of 18.7 months between the ages of 11 and 16), Torbay (+18.4 months) and Kingston-upon-Hull (+17.6 months). Looking across the full period of schooling from ages 5 to 16, it is remarkable that the gap increases by less than 2 months over 11 years of schooling in Tower Hamlets, Westminster, Redbridge and Newham. Indeed, the twenty local authorities with the smallest total gap-widening over the course of primary and secondary schooling are all in London. The three local authorities with the biggest gap-widening across school phases are Kingston-upon-Hull, Torbay and Blackpool.
Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0
Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2023
16-19 Education
As with gaps pre-16, there is substantial variation in the 16-19 disadvantage gap between LAs. The interactive maps below display 2022 disadvantage gaps at the LA level, together with changes in the gap since 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. We compare the attainment of disadvantaged students locally to the attainment of non-disadvantaged students nationally to allow for a consistent benchmark across areas.
Nationally, the 16-19 disadvantage gap was 3.5 grades in 2021/22. Notably, we observe that London boroughs tend to have amongst the smallest 16-19 disadvantage gaps in the country. Many, such as Southwark (-2.0 grades), Ealing (-1.3) and Islington (-1.3), have negative gaps meaning that disadvantage students in these LAs have greater attainment than the average non-disadvantaged student nationally. Of the 20 local authorities with the narrowest (or negative) 16-19 disadvantage gaps around the country, 15 were London Boroughs.
There is a less clear pattern to the LAs with the widest 16-19 disadvantage gaps. The five local authorities with the widest gaps were Derby, the Isle of Wight (both 5.8 grades), Barnsley, Torbay (both 5.9 grades) and North Somerset (6.3 grades)
Compared to 2019, the LAs that saw their 16-19 disadvantage gaps widen the most were Thurrock (+5.4 grades wider), Havering (+4.1 grades), Lancashire (+3.8 grades) and North Lincolnshire (+3.6 grades)
The LAs which saw their 16-19 disadvantage gap narrow the most since 2019 were Sunderland (1.8 grades narrower), Herefordshire and Doncaster (both 1.9 grades).
As with earlier phases, the size of the disadvantage gap around the country is likely to be correlated with the proportion of disadvantaged students within the authority. However, in the 16-19 phase in particular, changes since 2019 may have been driven by compositional differences in the types of qualification entered, and how grade increases varied by qualification type under TAGs and CAGs.
Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0
Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2023