This is a recent report from EEF and here are my takeaways.

A longitudinal study based on pupils in England which tracked 13100 young people from the age of 13/14 to their terminal GCSE examinations. The study looked 7 disadvantages. Ethnicity was not included in these but I will come back to that later. According to the report they were based on:

1. Those which are relevant to policy
2. Affecting 7% or more of the population
3. Reasonably large educational penalty (about 4 grades at KS4 or more).

 The 7 Disadvantages

1. Special Educational Needs
2. Eligibility for Free School Meals within the past 6 years
3. Maternal qualifications
4. Parental engagement in the young person’s education (based on whether they discussed school reports, attended parents’ evenings and talked about the young person’s plans for future studies).
5. A measure of the relationship between the main parent and child based on the frequency of arguments between them.
6. Whether the young person had access to an internet connected computer.
7. Ofsted rating of the young person’s school

 

 

 Disadvantaged Vs Non-Disadvantaged

Figure 1 shows the attainment of pupils and at the end of KS4 (best 8 score and the percentage obtaining Maths and English at GCSE level). The smallest difference between the not disadvantaged and disadvantaged is the quality of the school (Ofsted rating). However, it is still over 50 (best 8) points and around 30% (Maths and English measure) lower for pupils in requires improvement or inadequate schools. The SEN disadvantage being the largest difference of 125 points and 60% (less likely) to attain the English and Maths threshold.

I’m going to let you digest that if pupils attend a non-good/outstanding school, are eligible for FSM, have SEN, have a mother with no formal qualifications, have parents who don’t engage with education, have poor relationships with those parents or have no home internet access they are at least 30% less likely to achieve the threshold in English and Maths.

Those children at least 30% less likely to achieve the threshold in English and Maths at GCSE. Click To Tweet

 

The Attainment Penalty for the 7 Disadvantages

Let me point out here that the attainment penalty in SEN far outweighs the other. Progress here would be a much better measure.

‘However, it should also be recognised that SEN is an indicator that young people are, on average, likely to achieve significantly lower scores at KS4 than their non-SEN counterparts (all other things being equal).’

Number of Disadvantages Vs Attainment

A young person experiencing one type of disadvantage had significantly lower attainment on average than a young person with none of the disadvantages. This attainment deficit approximately doubled among young people experiencing two rather than just one of the disadvantages, approximately trebled among those experiencing three, and so on.

There is a linear relationship between attainment and the number of disadvantages a pupil has, 2 disadvantages doubles the attainment deficit, 3 trebles and so on. Click To Tweet

There is a linear relationship between the number of disadvantages and their best 8 scores (after accounting for other factors). If a child has a disadvantage this significantly lowers attainment, this (roughly) is doubled in children with 2 disadvantages and trebled with 3, and so on (the confidence interval toward the end of the graph does extremely small sample sizes).

FSM and SEN Funding Pots

Another fancy table. The point I’d like to highlight here is that 11.0% pupils have 2 of the other 5 disadvantages (multiple disadvantages), barring FSM attracting no funding from PP pot and 5% of pupils with multiple disadvantages are not FSM or SEN, attracting no funding from either pot.

Factors that were Excluded from Data

Earlier I alluded that some factors were excluded. The report says,

Inevitably, there were many measures we did not include, including personal characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, term of birth and illness or disability, and measures such as family composition and parental working status.

I’ll just leave you with this nugget from the paper.

‘Those from Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Black African and Black Caribbean ethnic minority groups had a relatively high incidence of multiple disadvantages in comparison to both young people from a White background and young people from an Indian ethnic background.’

‘Young people whose ethnic group is Pakistani were more likely than White students to have three or more disadvantages and two or more disadvantages. Young people from the Bangladeshi, Black African and Black Caribbean ethnic minority groups were also more likely than White students to have two or more disadvantages.’

Young people whose ethnic group is Pakistani were more likely than White students to have three or more disadvantages and two or more disadvantages. Click To Tweet

References

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/808591/LSYPE2_multiple_disadvantage_and_KS4_attainment.pdf