Social selection at our top-performing secondary schools manifests itself in myriad ways. Poorer pupils can be priced out of the catchment areas of popular comprehensives because local houses can cost as much as £45,700 more than those nearby. And even those young people who do live locally are less likely to get a school place: four-fifths (85 per cent) of comprehensive schools at the top of England’s GCSE tables enrolled a significantly lower proportion of disadvantaged pupils than the proportion of disadvantaged children in their catchments.
Faith schools are the most socially selective group of all. Yet even these can’t compete with the exclusivity of academically selective state schools: despite similarly high marks at the end of primary, poorer pupils have only a 25 per cent chance of attending a grammar compared with a 70 per cent chance for the least deprived pupils. These are hardly engines of social mobility.
And social segregation doesn’t end on national admissions day.
Poorer students are more likely to be permanently excluded from schools - replaced by middle-class children assiduously waiting on reserve pupil lists.
So what is driving social segregation?
The rules in the admissions code are intended to be fair. But sharp-elbowed, middle-class parents will seemingly go to any length to “game the system”.
Tactics range from renting properties near schools to sudden bouts of church attendance and even hiring private doctors to justify preferential treatment for children’s particular socio-emotional needs.
Some even resort to outright cheating - lying about their home address, for example.
The preponderance of academies in charge of their own admissions can make the “school-led| system even more difficult to navigate for some families, and some schools’ admissions policies and over-subscription criteria are lengthy and complex - acting as an additional barrier to applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Meanwhile, the new focus on pupil progress in league tables and Ofsted inspections unwittingly ratchets up the pressure on schools to overlook or even to get rid of their most challenging and vulnerable pupils.
For headteachers, it is a tempting Faustian choice: be penalised for the poor academic results of children leading deeply troubled lives, or take the easier option of exclusion, getting them off the school roll.
Is this necessarily bad for education?
Social segregation is not good for social mobility. Poorer pupils, on average, do better in more socially mixed schools - by around half a grade in each of their GCSEs. It’s not fair for them individually and the country loses out on unfulfilled talent, which has significant social and economic costs .
What can be done?
Increasing numbers of schools deploy ballots to select pupils once other admissions criteria have been met, and these are the fairest way to decide who gets places. Banding to guarantee diverse intakes is also used.
Faith schools could use simple binary criteria to confirm commitment to a particular religion. Inspectors could apply a social inclusivity test for schools, assessing how well they perform in terms of attracting poorer pupils in their locality.
Unless something is done, social selection will continue to increase unfairness and promote disadvantage.
Lee Elliot Major is chief executive of the Sutton Trust
