Barriers preventing the most disadvantaged students from attending the top comprehensive schools in England still exist, a report by The Sutton Trust reveals.
The report, published on national secondary school offer day last week, shows that the country’s top 500 schools - those with the highest proportion of pupils with five GCSEs at A* to C or equivalent, including English and maths - recruit almost half the proportion of children eligible for free school meals (FSM) recruited by the average secondary school.
Regional variation
It also reveals that the proportion of students eligible for FSM at top schools varies by region. Disadvantaged students in the North West appear to have a particularly low chance of attending a top secondary school.
Almost one fifth of all students in the region are eligible for FSM, but in top schools only 8.1 per cent of students were from a disadvantaged background.
In London, where, on average, almost a quarter of secondary school students are eligible for FSM, only 15.6 per cent of students from disadvantaged backgrounds were at top schools.
In Scotland, the number of secondary school students registered for FSM has dropped by 13 per cent over the past five years - from 45,024 in 2012 to 39,217 in 2016.
