Social selection on the map
Think tank: The Sutton Trust
Author(s): The Sutton Trust
September 4, 2024
This report from UK think tank The Sutton Trust looks at the geography of secondary school admissions.
The Sutton Trust has produced a series of research studies looking at socio-economic selectivity in the comprehensive system in England, repeatedly finding evidence that top comprehensive schools are, in practice, often highly socially selective.
The most recent addition to this series of reports, Selective Comprehensives 2024, added to this body of research, shows that selectivity at high performing schools remains high. This piece looks beyond just high performing schools, and digs deeper into the geographical patterns of socio-economic segregation in the comprehensive system as a whole, showing the wider impacts of selection. The data provides an unprecedented insight into the dynamics of secondary school admissions in England, including local authority-level analysis of school segregation.
Alongside the brief, we have published an interactive map. The map provides, for the first time, school-level information about how the socio-economic profile of school intakes reflect their local area, for almost every state secondary school in England. It allows schools and policy makers to compare the socio-economic intakes of schools in local authorities across the country.
