Even the most challenging schools can keep on driving up pupils' attainment, according to research in deprived former coal-mining communities.

But teachers have to be especially committed and energetic, while their schools have to be well led and sustain a wide range of activities "relentlessly" focused on improving teaching and learning.

The secondary schools in the study, funded by the Department for Education and Skills, improved over five years, though researchers, from Warwick and Bath universities, concede that in two of the six, changes in intake contributed to improved results.

The initial proportions of pupils getting five good GCSEs ranged from 13 to 30%, Between 13.5 and 34.5% of pupils were entitled to free school meals. All except one of the improved results over five years by up to 21% points.

External factors affecting improvement included extra cash arriving via education action zones and adoption of specialist or "faith" status to improve the school's standing in the community.

The key factor was a relentless focus on teaching and learning, combined with good leadership from the head. The schools carried out a range of initiatives well, focusing heavily on literacy and numeracy. Others included mentoring, expanded extra-curricular activities, careful monitoring of pupils data and improved staff training.

Raising Attainment in Schools in Former Coalfields Areas is available at www.dfes.gov.uk/research

(TES, 13 June 2003)

Poverty is the best predictor of inspection grades, according to an analysis of more than two years of figures from OFSTED. Teaching, management and school ethos are consistently judged to be better in secondary schools with wealthier pupils. Those who teach many pupils on free school meals are statistically unlikely to get a favourable inspection grade. The figures show that only 4% of schools where more than a third of pupils received free school meals were given the top grade for quality of education. One in three comprehensives with less than 5% of poorer children were judged to provide an excellent education. They analysis was carried out by Karl Turner, deputy headteacher of Byng Kenrick central school in Birmingham.  

(TES, 21 May 1999)  

Primary schools condemned as failing are overwhelmingly those in areas with high levels of poverty according to figures from the Office for Standards in Education. These show that the poorest 10% of schools in the country are eight times more likely to fail their inspections than schools with average levels of poverty or better. The poorest third of primaries account for 70% of failing schools. The poorest tenth makes up nearly 40%. This clear link between poverty and failure contradicts recent claims by chief inspector Chris Woodhead that deprivation only affects a minority of schools placed under 'special measures'.   

(TES, July 31 1998)   

An independent report published in December 1999 by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation points to continuing  - and possibly worsening - inequalities in education. The report's assessment of poverty and exclusion over the past two years finds 4.4 million children below the official poverty line (less than half of average income after housing costs). Two million children are living in houses where there is no one in paid employment. 
The report reveals significant differences in the performance of primary children in schools with 35% or more of children on free meals, compared to pupils in all schools. It also points to an increasing concentration of poorer children in particular schools - leading to a polarisation within the primary sector.  

(TES, 10 December 1999) 

All State Secondary Schools (1995)   

Free school meals and GCSE results: The table follows standard practice in using a pupil's eligibility for school meals as an indicator of some degree of poverty.  

Jesson & Gray's 1991 Nottinghamshire study revealed that half of the pupils receiving free school meals had low GCSE scores as opposed to one sixth of pupils who did not qualify for free school meals.   

There has been a rise of 40% in the number of children receiving free school meals since 1991.   

What the Panda annex indicates The Panda annex provides statistical information on the 24,000 state schools in England. The breakdown by free school meals - an indicator of poverty - shows that the overall results of children at schools with the biggest entitlement to free school meals are not good. Only 2% of such schools achieve very good standards.  
 

• 300,000 children miss out on free school meals: Over a million children living in poverty are not entitled to free school meals, and a third of those who are eligible are missing out. A report by the Child Poverty Action Group has found that more than 300,000 children are missing out on free school meals because the way some schools run the system leaves children vulnerable to bullying. Many primary and secondary schools have separate queues in the canteen for children taking free lunches and different types of meals, so children feel stigmatised and embarrassed. The report adds further evidence of a north/south divide, as the number of children eligible for school meals in the north-east is double that in the south-west. (Independent, 9 December, 1999)

An analysis by the TES in 1999 showed that when local authority KS2 test results were put in the context of poverty levels, a number of London councils and new unitary authorities were slipping behind. Around 10 local authorities, including Liverpool and Bradford, were further behind than the previous year. Newham was badly under performing at KS2. The newly created authorities also struggling included City of Nottingham, Thurrock, The City of Peterborough, Milton Keynes and Poole.  

English scores are low in Bradford, Liverpool, Hackney, Rotherham, Islington and Milton Keynes. Of the literacy pilots, Liverpool and Hackney improved at a rate above the national average last year, but the rate of improvement in English in Islington and Bradford was just below the national average.  

• "Underachievement in reading is a major threat to pupils' educational progress in both primary and secondary education. The largest group who persistently performed least well in reading was composed of year 6, white pupils from poor socio-economic backgrounds .... The cumulative effect of these weaknesses in literacy on their self-esteem and opportunities to learn can only be guessed."(OFSTED 1996: The teaching of reading in 45 inner London primary schools)  

• Barbara MacGilchrist, Dean of Initial Teacher Education at the Institute of Education argues in her paper Reading & Achievement - some lessons for the future that the cumulative effects don't have to be guessed. She cites, among others, The National Child Development Study (Davie et al 1972) which found significant class differences in attainment. Children from social class category 5 (unskilled), were found to have 5 times more reading problems at the age of 7 than children in category 1 (professional and managerial), with the difference doubling by age 11. The next follow-up study of the cohort found that by age 16 three-quarters of the children in category 5 had reading scores that were below average. 

• Reading in Recession published by the National Foundation for Educational Research in 1992 indicated that there had been some decline in reading standards between 1987 and 1991 for children aged 7 and 8. Not one of the schools where reading performance had improved was an inner city school or in an area generally associated with need or social disadvantage, therefore indicating that lower standards may not be general throughout the system. 

• The Junior School Project (Mortimore et al, 1988) looked at 7-year-old pupils in 50 London schools and provided a valuable source of evidence about the effect of schooling on pupil outcomes. It also focused attention on the significance of pupils' early attainment in reading. Interestingly, the focus on progress revealed the significance of schooling. With reading, the school effect was found to be 4 times more important than home background. For maths and writing it was 10 times. However, while the research team found that effective schools did boost the achievement levels of all the children, they also found that what did not happen was a narrowing of the gap between the achievement levels of the disadvantaged and the privileged groups. A key finding was that pupils' level of ability at age 7 was a good predictor of their future level of achievement. A relationship was found between the level of reading at age 7 and the level of achievement at examinations at 16.Despite 5 years of secondary schooling, the primary effect had not been washed out.

• Hungry children, unsurprisingly, are seven times more likely than their better-fed classmates to fight, steal, disobey school rules and fail academically according to a medical study in America. The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, found that 21% of hungry children were dysfunctional, compared to 3% of the properly fed. More than half the pupils in urban American schools lack basic literacy, having failed to reach minimum standards in tests in reading, mathematics and science. In poorer districts the figure increased to two-thirds.

Since 1988 the number of sixteen-year-olds achieving five or more grades A-Cs has risen from 30 to 44.5%. Since 1980 the proportion of those going on to full-time further education has nearly doubled. The numbers entering higher education have risen too, from 13% in 1983 to about a third in 1996. However, there is still a significant minority who achieve no qualifications at all: GCSE results for 1997 show that 50,000 16 year olds achieved no GCSE passes at all, i.e. one in seven. 

Data from individual secondary schools shows urban comprehensive schools in the 10% most disadvantaged areas have proportions getting GCSE 5+ grades A-C at about half the rate of schools in the 10% most advantaged areas (24% as against 49% in 1993). Individual school results suggest that in some areas there are schools with increasing proportions of socially disadvantaged pupils, some of whom have been excluded by other schools. Such schools may find themselves trapped in a vicious circle, with the Local authority having limited capacity to help. 

(CPAG: Britain Divided) 

No leaving school before taking GCSEs  

The league-table 'living dead' may have been resurrected by an announcement by the Government in September 1997 that from 1998 there is to be one single leaving date, the last Friday in June, for year 11 students wishing to leave school. Young people will not be able to leave school prior to that date even if they are already 16. The Government intends that the change in the law will help more young people get GCSEs and other qualifications before they leave school. 

One side effect of the pressure on secondary schools caused by the league tables was to encourage them to persuade year-11 pupils who looked as if they were going to do very badly in their exams, or fail to turn up at all, to leave school by the end of December. This meant that they were off roll by the time of the January roll call and therefore did not count against the school when the league-table positions were worked out since these calculations are based on the exam results of pupils on roll in January. 

The Government is concerned about the significant number of pupils leaving school without any qualifications. In 1997 this accounted for one in seven 16 year olds. 

Attempts to stop teenagers from dropping out of school  

Teenage drop outs will be paid to go back to school - 16 and 17 year olds who have left school and are either out of work or stuck in dead end jobs will be offered educational maintenance allowances to tempt them back to do GCSE courses. The programme was announced by David Blunkett  in 1999 and aims to push up the number of 19 year olds with 5 GCSEs from the current 70% to 85% by 2002. 

CPAG findings are that, 'Fund-raising and voluntary contributions are increasingly used to subsidise school budgets rather than provide the 'non-essentials'. This is not surprising when schools are spending on books between a third and a half of what they should for decent library provision (Book Trust 1996). Figures from Ofsted suggest that 23% of secondary schools and 13% of primary schools suffered from shortage of books that 'adversely affected the standards of lessons' (TES December 1996). According to the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, 92% of primary schools and 75% of secondary schools asked parents directly for this type of help (NCPTA, 1996). In 1990, schools in county towns and rural areas raised twice as much per pupil as inner city schools. 

(Sumner & Hutchinson, 1990)