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Social Mobility

Answer

The Secretary of State's speech to IPPR on 26 July 2005 set out the Government's commitment to help develop a society which can foster greater social mobility. Her speech underlined the important role that education can play in improving life chances for all individuals, and it set out the forward looking context for our programme of reform across the system.An assessment of changes in inter-generational academic achievement is constrained by data limitations. However in a paper accompanying the speech, ““Has the Social Class Gap Narrowed in Primary Schools””, analysis was presented to show how gaps in attainment between pupils from high and low income brackets (proxied by free school meal (FSM) status) have changed. The paper focused on key stage 2 between 1998 and 2004, the period in which the data allows such comparisons to be made.The analysis showed that performance has improved on average for both FSM and non-FSM pupils, but there was little significant change in the gap between the two groups. However it was found that schools with the highest proportions of pupils eligible for FSM did narrow the gap compared to schools with low proportions of FSM. For example in key stage 2 English, the gap in attainment at level 4 narrowed by eight percentage points in the period 1998–2004 between schools with high and low proportions of FSM pupils. The full paper is available on the Department's website.Further analysis will be carried out over the coming months. In particular, we will look at key stages 1, 3 and 4, to the extent that data for these phases can be tracked over time on a comparable basis.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

41449; 441 c1026W

Session

2005-06

Subjects

Education Income Free school meals Statistics Standards Social mobility

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk