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The Mathematics Mastery programme is a whole-school approach to teaching mathematics that aims to raise attainment for all pupils and close the attainment gap between pupils from low income families and their peers. The programme aims to deepen pupils' understanding of key mathematical concepts. This evaluation assessed the impact of Mathematics Mastery on pupils in Year 1, after the programme had been implemented in schools for one year. It was intended that schools would also begin to use the programme in Year 2 in the second year of implementation, and continue until the approach was in place across the school. The evaluation used a randomised controlled trial design, with schools randomly allocated to begin the programme in 2012 or 2013. Eighty-three schools from London and the South East participated in the trial, with a total sample of 4,176 pupils. Participating schools received training and resources to support the adoption of the programme which was delivered by the education charity, Ark. The project was one of two evaluations of Mathematics Mastery funded by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). Key conclusions include: (1) On average, Year 1 pupils in schools adopting Mathematics Mastery made a small amount more progress than pupils in schools that did not. However, the effect detected was not statistically significant, meaning that it is not possible to rule out chance as an explanation; (2) There is little evidence that the effect of Mathematics Mastery differs between children with different levels of prior achievement; (3) Combining the findings from this study and a second randomised controlled trial of Mathematics Mastery involving Year 7 pupils strengthens the overall evidence for the approach; (4) Given the low per-pupil cost, Mathematics Mastery may represent a cost-effective change for primary schools to consider; and (5) It would be worthwhile to track the medium and long-term impact of the approach, in part to assess the degree to which the test used in this evaluation is predictive of general mathematics attainment and performance in high-stakes tests. [For the Secondary Evaluation Report, see ED581187. For the Overarching Summary Report, see ED581180.]

The Mathematics Mastery programme is a whole-school approach to teaching mathematics that aims to raise attainment for all pupils and close the attainment gap between pupils from low income families and their peers. The programme aims to deepen pupils' conceptual understanding of key mathematical concepts. This summary is based on two randomised controlled trials of Mathematics Mastery funded by the Education Endowment Foundation. The first evaluation assessed the impact of the programme on pupils in Year 1. 83 schools from London and the South East participated in the trial, with a total sample of 4,176 pupils. The second assessed the impact of the programme on pupils in Year 7. 44 schools from London and the South East participated in the trial, with a total sample of 5,938 pupils. Both evaluations assessed the programme's impact in its first year of adoption. In subsequent years it was intended that schools would begin to use the approach with older year groups until it was in place across all year groups. The education charity, Ark, provided participating schools with training and resources to support the adoption of the programme. Key conclusions include: (1) This summary is based on findings from two randomised controlled trials conducted in English schools between 2011 and 2014; (2) On average, pupils in schools adopting Mathematics Mastery made a small amount more progress than pupils in schools that did not. The effect detected was statistically significant, which means that it is likely that that improvement was caused by the programme; (3) It is unclear whether the programme had a different impact on pupils eligible for free school meals, or on pupils with higher or lower attainment; (4) Given the low per-pupil cost, Mathematics Mastery may represent a cost-effective change for schools to consider; and (5) The evaluations assessed the impact of the programme in its first year of adoption. It would be worthwhile to track the medium and long-term impact of the approach. [For the Primary Evaluation Report, see ED581183. For the Secondary Evaluation Report, see ED581187.]

Snow penitentes form in sublimation conditions by differential ablation. Here we investigate the physical processes at the initial stage of penitente growth and perform the linear stability analysis of a flat surface submitted to the solar heat flux. We show that these patterns do not simply result from the self-illumination of the surface --a scale-free process-- but are primarily controlled by vapor diffusion and heat conduction. The wavelength at which snow penitentes emerge is derived and discussed. We found that it is controlled by aerodynamic mixing of vapor above the ice surface., Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures

In the UK there has historically been a clear demarcation between the academic and vocational routes through education post-16. Generally vocational study is taken either on a part time basis or full time at Further Education (FE) colleges. Students who want to take academic qualifications such as A levels have the option to enrol in a school sixth form, a Sixth Form College or a general FE college. The FE route is therefore an important one through the educational system for both vocational and academic students alike. This research investigates which types of students choose to study at these different institutions and whether this choice matters for the achievement of educational outcomes. In this report the authors determine first what types of student stay on in education past the age of 16 and which types of student enrol in different types of post-16 institution. They then ask whether post-16 institutions matter to pupils' final key stage 5 achievement and specifically whether FE colleges contribute differently to the gain in pupil attainment for those taking A levels as compared to sixth form based provision (in schools or colleges). In this paper the authors assume that the decision process regarding the person's choice of post compulsory education course (if any) is sequential. They conclude the following: (1) Different types of pupils choose to enrol in FE and sixth form based provision; and (2) The following types of pupils are more likely to enrol in sixth form based provision: (1) More advantaged/high achieving pupils; (2) Pupils in a school with a 6th form; (3) Pupils in the most advantaged schools; (4) Pupils in a single sex school; (5) Pupils in a school with a lower pupil teacher ratio; and (6) Pupils in comprehensive or community schools. The authors conclude from Part 1 of their report, that general FE college enrolment is determined by pupils' prior attainment but also by their family background and their parents' attitude towards education. As FE attendance is socially graded, this is likely to impact on pupil performance at Key Stage 5 as well. These results clearly illustrate that there is significant selection of pupils into FE provision and that this will tend to bias results if it is not fully accounted for. The authors conclude from Parts 2 and 3 of this report that those in general FE colleges, whether doing A levels or other types of Key Stage 5 qualifications, do more poorly in terms of their education attainment than those who opt for sixth form based provision. This result only holds for students who are higher achieving at GCSE level. Furthermore, they only considered students who took either A levels or other level 3 qualifications in FE colleges. FE colleges often take students who have not attained level 2 qualifications and this important role is not considered in their analysis. The authors also need to be cautious. Their models do allow for a substantial array of factors that influence pupils' choice of post 16 institution and that also influence pupil attainment, such as pupils' socio-economic background. Yet they need to remain aware that despite the richness of their models, this result may still reflect the fact that those who attend FE colleges are more educationally disadvantaged in ways that they do not account for in their model. Appended are: (1) Summarising descriptive statistics; (2) The determinants of remaining in full time education and choice of post-16 provision by gender; (3) Separate models by institution types- Dependent variable: KS5 average score A-level only); (4) Test of balance between observables in the two groups (treated and nontreated); and (5) The relationship between post 16 institution and participation in higher education. (Contains 25 tables, 4 figures, and 37 footnotes.)

The Centre for the Economics of Education was asked to investigate the factors that influence a range of children's academic and non-academic outcomes, including their enjoyment of school, whether they take unauthorised absence from school and whether they feel they are bullied. The study also investigated whether schools can influence these non-academic outcomes. The study makes use of the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England, which is a survey of young people in secondary school that collects information on bullying, truancy and many other factors in each child's life. The data is linked to information on each child's academic achievement, enabling this study to investigate the inter-relationship between a pupil's academic performance and non academic outcomes. Pupils who enjoy school more at age 14 have, perhaps unsurprisingly, higher academic achievement by age 16. Equally, children who have higher achievement at age 11 go on to enjoy school more at age 16 though this is a not a strong relationship. In other words enjoyment of school and academic achievement are clearly linked. Pupils who were bullied or who took unauthorised absence at age 14 had significantly lower educational achievement at GCSE. Pupils who experienced bullying at age 14 were also much more likely to experience bullying at age 16. Therefore early negative outcomes, such as being bullied, suggest the child is at risk of having later negative experiences at age 16. Conversely, pupils who participate in positive extra-curricular activities, such as clubs, were also found to have better academic achievement later in their schooling. High achievers at school, i.e. pupils who do well academically at age 14, were also no more likely to be bullied at age 16 than other children. The report also investigated the impact of schools on some of these non-academic outcomes between 14-16 and found little evidence that schools currently have different impacts on pupil's enjoyment of school, nor whether they take unauthorised absence, nor their likelihood of being bullied. In other words, which school a pupil attends is likely to have small or no effect on their wider well-being. This does not mean that schools do not have the potential to impact on these factors but rather that currently there are not large differences across schools in these outcomes once socio-economic factors have been taken into account. The report concludes that non-academic factors, such as a pupil's enjoyment of school, are inextricably linked to pupils' academic achievement. We need to be aware of these relationships when considering policies to improve pupil achievement. The report also provides some useful risk indicators of future low pupil academic achievement. For example, some factors, such as being bullied or taking unauthorised absence, predict low future academic achievement. Again this can be used by schools and policy-makers to identify pupils at risk of low attainment. This research report was written before the new UK Government took office on 11 May 2010. As a result the content may not reflect current Government policy. This research will be of use to officials and ministers in helping to shape the future direction of policy and Departmental strategy. Appended are: (1) Appendix 1: Descriptive statistics; (2) Fixed or Random Effect; (3) Robustness Checks; (4) Correlation between fixed effects from the different models; and (5) Instrumental Variables estimates. (Contains 13 tables, 6 figures and 24 footnotes.)

Commuting or re-location costs could be an in important influence on students' university choices and might even deter some from going to university. The barriers presented by these costs may be high for lower-income students, and students for whom there are cultural incentives to remain in or close to the parental home. If this is the case, then the geographical accessibility of universities has an important bearing on differences in higher education choices for different income and ethnic groups, and, in turn, on their earnings and life chances. Existing evidence has shown that university places are not evenly spatially distributed in Britain. Research has also found that "non-traditional" students--those from backgrounds in which higher-education participation is emerging--cite the location of institutions as a factor affecting their decision to go in to higher education. However, it is easy to make the mistake of attributing behaviour to ethnicity, gender or income when these behaviours are really due to other differences, like academic achievement, or home location which will have strong bearing on if and where students go to university. In fact, there is no large scale, systematic evidence for the UK that shows that proximity to a university really matters for higher education participation or choice amongst universities, or that it matters more for specific ethnic or income groups. The authors' research looks at these questions using administrative data on the population of school leavers and university entrants in England. These data allow the authors to link the choices of students from different ethnic and income backgrounds to distances between home and university, whilst accounting for schooling, neighbourhood and other background characteristics. Their key findings are: (1) Universities are not evenly distributed around the country but 90% of locations have three institutions and 4000 first degree places within 100km; (2) Non-white ethnic groups and low-income students actually live closer to their nearest three higher education institutions and closer to their nearest three high-quality research institutions than their white and high-income counterparts. These facts suggest that disparities in geographical access are unlikely to be a source of disadvantage to ethnic minorities and poor students; (3) Home-to-university distance has only a tiny influence on the probability of participation in higher education, relative to achievement and other background factors. Their statistical models imply that doubling the distance to the nearest institution would reduce the probability of white female participation by at most 4.5% in relative terms--reducing the probability of participation at the mean from 28.4% to 27.1%. For males, the effect is only half that, but there are no systematic differences by ethnic or income group; (4) In contrast, distance is the strongest factor influencing university choice amongst those who participate. The probability that a student attends a specific university decreases by 8%-15% with each 10% increase in home-to-university distance. This distance cost is observed for all ethnic and income groups, but is highest for Pakistani and Bangladeshi girls and low income students, and lowest for Black students and those from Professional backgrounds; and (5) The influence of distance on choice of institution could make a difference to the type of higher education received by different demographic groups. This is a moot point for ethnic minorities, who have high participation rates at "elite" research intensive universities relative to whites, but provides a potential explanation for lower participation rates amongst women and low income groups in top ranked research universities. The findings therefore offer no support for the idea that improving the accessibility of higher education institutions is an effective route to raising participation. However, targeting the accessibility of higher-quality institutions could increase uptake of high quality HE places amongst suitably qualified students from lower-occupational status backgrounds. Such policies might include action to reduce the role of distance (distance learning) but also policies to encourage higher status institutions to undertake outreach activities further afield. In any case, the authors find no evidence to suggest that such a policy need be gender or ethnically targeted. One further important spatial implication from this work is that the type and quality of higher education in which students enroll is in part governed by the type and quality of local institutions, which in turn partly determines the skill composition of the local population. Given this, the local mix of institution types and quality could have a strong bearing on the quality and composition of the local human capital stock. (Contains 11 tables, 4 figures and 23 footnotes.)

A large proportion of the UK adult population has very poor literacy and/or numeracy skills (see the 1999 Moser Report, the 2003 "Skills for Life" Survey and the 2006 Leitch report). In 1999, the Moser report found that approximately 20% of adults in England had severe literacy difficulties, whilst around 40% had some numeracy problems. Having a population with a large proportion of people with poor literacy and numeracy is harmful both to the low-skilled individuals themselves (who face a higher probability of being unemployed, having an unstable job and lower wages) and to firms (that increasingly need a better skilled workforce). The evidence to support the economic value of basic skills is now extensive (see section 2). There are however, potential indirect benefits from basic skills, which have been less frequently addressed in the literature. This paper addresses the important question of how parents' basic skills relate to the early cognitive development of their children (at age 3-6). This question is important as early cognitive ability is a key determinant of subsequent schooling, wages, and other socio-economic outcomes (Heckman, 1995; Murnane "et al.", 1995; Feinstein and Duckworth, 2006). Further, there are significant cognitive achievement gaps between children from various socioeconomic groups: these gaps emerge early i.e. before starting school (Cunha and Heckman, 2007) and increase as children age (Carneiro and Heckman, 2004; Feinstein, 2003). Understanding the inter-generational transmission of skills is therefore important from both a distributional and an efficiency perspective, and indeed a number of recent papers have investigated the contribution of parents to the early formation of their children's cognitive skill (Todd and Wolpin, 2007, Cunha and Heckman, 2007). The novelty of this paper is that the authors distinguish the separate contribution of parents' literacy and numeracy skills in adulthood (at age 34) on their children's cognitive test scores, as distinct from the role of other factors including parental ability, education and socio-economic status. The authors use the British Cohort Study (BCS) data set, in which rich information on parents is combined with early test scores for their children. The authors use numeracy and literacy tests of parents at age 34 and relate them to cognitive tests of their children taken pre-school at ages 3 to 6. They are able to control for a vast array of family and individual characteristics, including parents' early years (parents have been surveyed 7 times since their birth in 1970) and socio-economic background. The authors find that parents' basic skills in literacy and numeracy at age 34 have a positive significant effect on their children's test scores, over and above the positive effects of parental education and ability. Appended are: (1) Variable Description; (2) OLS estimates using the same sample size for all the regressions; (3) Strength and Difficulties Scale; and (4) SURE regressions of cognitive and non cognitive outcomes for school age children. (Contains 8 tables and 17 footnotes.)

The purpose of this report is to determine the extent to which NVQ2 qualifications, when acquired in a person's late twenties and early thirties, encourage progression on to other learning and/or lead to other beneficial changes in a person's economic circumstances. The project will provide evidence to help inform the Department about whether NVQ2 qualifications are likely to contribute to individuals' productivity and to assist in attempts to improve qualification design and delivery. The report will also provide evidence on the likely effects of the historical policy emphasis on reaching level 2. One issue of pressing policy importance is to explain why the wage returns to NVQ2 qualifications appear to be minimal (Dearden et al. 2000; McIntosh 2002 and Dearden et al. 2004). Although this question has been addressed in a number of different academic studies, we will provide up to date information on the extent to which NVQ2 specifically, when acquired in mid career, can provide wage (and employment) benefits. For the analysis, we use quantitative analysis methods applied to the rich data from the British Cohort Study (1970) data (BCS). The specific research questions we will be able to address are: (1) What are the characteristics of individuals who acquire NVQ2 qualifications in their twenties and thirties? In particular can we describe these individuals in terms of their prior ability, gender, ethnicity, other education and parental background?; (2) Do those who acquire NVQ2 qualifications in their twenties and thirties experience wage gains or employment changes subsequently? Is there any lag in the effect of NVQ2 on wages or employment?; (3) How does the acquisition of NVQ2 qualifications specifically compare, in terms of learning, wage and employment outcomes, as compared to the acquisition of other level 2 qualifications?; and (4) Are individuals who acquire NVQ2 qualifications before the age of 30 more likely to go on to subsequent spells of learning (either accredited or non-accredited learning), as compared to a) individuals who have undertaken other forms of level 2 learning; and b) those who have undertaken no adult learning? The report is structured as follows. We start in section 2 by very briefly summarizing previous research evidence on this issue. We then describe the data and methods used in section 3. In section 4 we investigate the characteristics of individuals who acquire a NVQ2 between the ages of 26 and 34. We will also explore the extent to which there has been any trend change in the acquisition of NVQ2 over the period 1996-2004 for this particular cohort (BCS participants have been interviewed in 1996, 2000 and 2004). Normally we would expect a lower incidence of lifelong learning as individuals get older. However, as various policies have been introduced over the period, this may have increased the likelihood of lifelong learning and we can (descriptively) determine whether there has been any change in the incidence of this form of lifelong learning for this cohort. In section 5 we will then examine the relationship between acquiring an NVQ2 and subsequent changes in both wages and employment. In section 6 we will explore the extent to which acquiring an NVQ2 leads individuals to engage in more learning/ qualification acquisition in subsequent periods. Section 7 concludes. (Contains 17 tables and 13 footnotes.) [Additional funding for this paper was provided by the Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills.]

In this paper we evaluate the labour market value of basic skills in the UK, focusing on the wage and employment returns to having better literacy and numeracy skills. We draw on literacy and numeracy assessments undertaken by all cohort members of the UK 1970 British Cohort Study. The data used are very rich and allow us to account for potential ability bias, including as they do early childhood assessments of ability. We find that the literacy and numeracy effects on earnings are over and above any general effect on earnings from a person being more cognitively able. We also assess whether the value of basic skills, in terms of wage returns, has increased over time, using a cross cohort analysis based on the 1958 National Child Development Study cohort and the 1970 British Cohort Study. Our results show that literacy and numeracy skills retained their high value in the labour market over the period 1995-2004, despite numerous policy attempts to increase the supply of basic skills during this period. Appended are: (1) UK Classifications of levels of literacy and numeracy; (2) British Cohort Study 1970--2004 sweep at age 34; (3) Means and Standard errors of the preferred BCS sample (N=3131); and (4) Full specification for Table 2 (main text): The relationship between age 34 basic skills and earnings: men and women. (Contains 12 tables and 31 footnotes.)

The recent industrial action taken by the Association of University Teachers (AUT) has given the issue of academic pay high prominence in the UK press. There appears to be a remarkable consensus that higher education academic salaries are too low, relative to other groups of workers in the UK, and that this is leading to an academic "brain drain". There is concern that this in turn will result in lower quality higher education, as universities fail to attract the "brightest and the best". To rise above the rhetoric, there is a pressing need for robust evidence on relative academic salaries. In this paper, we compare the salaries of Higher Education teaching professionals in the United Kingdom with those of other comparable professionals. We offer evidence on relative salaries in HE academia over the last decade or so and we compare academic salaries to a range of different comparator groups, including some specific occupational groupings that one might view as more similar, in terms of unobserved characteristics, to academics. We then consider the extent to which the gap between the earnings of HE academics and that of other occupations is attributable to differences in the characteristics of academics, for example the fact that they are more highly educated on average, or to differences in the price paid for a given set of characteristics. We conclude that HE teaching professionals earn somewhat lower earnings than most public sector graduates and do particularly poorly compared to most other comparable professionals; they also work longer hours than most. In particular, academic earnings compare poorly to those in the legal professions, consultants physicians and dental practitioners (across both the public and private sectors). On the other hand, there are groups of public sector workers that do worse than HE academics, and in particular FE academics earn significantly less. Technical Information is appended. (Contains 7 tables and 2 footnotes.)

We report on various nanocarbons formed from a unique structural pattern containing two pentagons, three hexagons and two heptagons, resulting from local rearrange- ments around a divacancy in pristine graphene or nanotubes. This defect can be inserted in sheets or tubes either individually or as extended defect lines. Sheets or tubes containing only this defect as a pattern can also be obtained. These fully defective sheets, and most of the tubes, present a very pronounced rippled (wavy) structure and their energies are lower than other structures based on pentagons and heptagons published so far. Another particularity of these rippled carbon sheets is their ability to fold themselves into a two-dimensional porous network of inter- connected tubes upon heat treatment as shown by hybrid Monte Carlo simulations. Finally, contrary to the common belief that pentagon/heptagon based structures are metallic, this work shows that this defect pattern should give rise to semi-metallic conduction.

The paper aims to make a methodological contribution to the education segregation literature, providing a critique of previous measures of segregation used in the literature, as well as suggesting an alternative approach to measuring school segregation. It also provides new empirical evidence on changes in the extent of socio-economic segregation (measured by free school meals (FSM) entitlement) in English schools during the last fifteen years. Specifically, the paper examines Gorard "et al.'s" (2000a, 2003) finding that FSM segregation between schools fell significantly in the years following the 1988 Education Reform Act. Using Annual Schools Census data from 1989 to 2004, the paper challenges the magnitude of their findings, suggesting that the method used by Gorard et al. actually overstates the size of the fall in segregation by 100%. Our results show evidence of an increase in the index of dissimilarity in many Local Authorities, especially in London, although in the South-East as a whole we note that it falls. We also observe higher segregation in LEAs with higher proportions of pupils at voluntary-aided schools. We cannot confirm however, whether this is a causal relationship. It is not necessarily the case that the rise in the segregation index in these Local Authorities is attributable to the behaviour of VA schools. Much of this paper is a critique of previous methods used to measure segregation in schools. For example, we suggest that the GS index is not the optimal way of measuring changes in school segregation for the following reasons: (1) GS is not bounded by 0 and 1: the upper boundary varies according to FSM eligibility, so GS is better described as an "indicator" rather than an index of segregation; (2) GS is not symmetric, meaning that it is capable of showing that FSM segregation is rising and NONFSM segregation is falling simultaneously; and (3) GS is actually systematically variant to changes in overall FSM eligibility, except in the most stringent and unlikely of circumstances (the strict proportionate change in FSM); therefore we can properly describe it as composition variant. It had a tendency to fall as FSM eligibility rises, regardless of the change in the unevenness of school's shares of FSM and NONFSM pupils. In this paper we make the case for a segregation curve approach to measuring segregation and use one exemplar index, the index of Dissimilarity, to re-evaluate the extent of school segregation in England over the last fifteen years. What can we conclude? (1) There was no pervasive increase in segregation over the period; (2) There are a number of potential explanations for this. For example, it may be that de facto school choice did not in fact increase during this period due to capacity constraints; (3) The analysis does however provide clear evidence of an increase in segregation, as measured by the index of dissimilarity, in many Local Authorities, particularly in London. The index is also higher in LEAs with higher proportions of pupils educated at voluntary-aided schools, although this relationship is not necessarily causal; (4) We have not been able evaluate the causal impact of policies that give schools increased control over their own admissions on segregation, however we have found an association between LEAs with higher proportions of pupils in schools that control their own admissions or have explicit select by ability and the level of FSM segregation. We suggest that the level of measured segregation be carefully monitored over time, as the proportion of schools that are LEA community schools continues to fall; and (5) We note that pupil numbers in secondary schools will fall from 2005. It will be important that measures are taken to improve the ability of disadvantaged pupils to take up free places in the schools of their choice, otherwise the spare capacity in the system may well result in rising levels of segregation and in particular a concentration of disadvantaged pupils in some schools operating in deprived areas. We conclude that deciding how best to measure segregation is complex, combining fundamentally normative judgements about what exactly one intends to measure, with more technical judgements about the appropriate properties of the chosen measure. We believe that we have made a good case for a specific approach, being open about the normative judgements we have made to reach our conclusion. We have chosen to criticise one alternative approach to measuring segregation, GS, examining its properties in detail. Further research is certainly needed to subject alternative methods of measuring school segregation, such as multilevel modelling or the isolation index, to the same level of scrutiny. (Contains 6 tables, 13 figures and 12 footnotes.)

Throughout the post-war period there have been many attempts to reform the UK education system, often with an explicit intention to try and make it more productive. The list of education policy reforms that have been attempted over the last 50 years is quite extensive, and recently the UK (and in particular England and Wales) has introduced many innovative market-oriented reforms to its education system, in an attempt to raise standards. The most striking recent reform is that parents have increasingly been given much more choice in terms of the school attended by their children, and schools have been forced to be more accountable. Other notable reforms include a nationally prescribed curriculum, vigorous attempts to raise participation in post-compulsory schooling and the introduction of tuition fees for higher education. In this article the authors describe a number of the more important educational reforms that have been introduced in the UK during the last twenty years or so, and where possible they provide evidence of their impact. However, in the UK, although economists and others are increasingly able to inform policy-makers on the impact and efficacy of specific policy interventions, the evaluation of specific policies in a rigorous manner unfortunately remains relatively unusual. This is mainly because the design of policy interventions is often such that they are not amenable to economic evaluation. Here the authors highlight what one can view as robust findings on each policy intervention, and point to where more evidence is needed. (Contains 4 tables, 2 figures and 5 footnotes.)

There has been a substantial rise in British education levels in recent decades, and new empirical evidence suggests that less able but wealthier children have benefited most from this expansion, at least during the 1970s and 1980s. There are many potential explanations for this trend. For example, during this period, the UK's highly selective "grammar school" system was largely dismantled. It is possible that reducing the extent of selection by ability in the UK education system may have altered the relationship between ability, family background and educational achievement, reducing the impact of ability on achievement and increasing the impact of family income and other family background factors. We test this hypothesis using data from the UK in the 1970s. Whilst the impact of the UK grammar system is of course of enormous historical interest, this issue also has significant policy relevance today. Certainly selection remains a topical issue. In the UK and indeed in the US, there have been recent policy initiatives that have attempted to explicitly or implicitly increase selection in the school system. Furthermore, in some parts of the UK, grammar schools remain an important feature of the education system. In this paper we explore and quantify the relationships between early cognitive ability, family background and school selection on the one hand, and educational achievement on the other, focusing particularly on the effects of selective schooling on different groups of students. For example, we assess the impact of selection on higher and lower ability pupils. Our results indicate that the most able pupils in the selective school system did do somewhat better than those of similar ability in mixed ability school systems. Thus the grammar system was advantageous for the most able pupils in the system, i.e. highly able students who managed to get into grammar schools. On the other hand, lower ability pupils did not do systematically better or worse in the selective school system. Many commentators have argued that the "comprehensive experiment" failed in England and Wales, reducing standards and educational achievement. To some extent our findings support this. The shift to mixed ability schooling did reduce the educational achievement of the most able. From an historical perspective, our results also suggest that the dismantling of the UK selective school system played some part in ensuring that the subsequent expansion of the education system disproportionately benefited less able (but wealthier) students. In terms of the current policy agenda, our evidence is potentially comforting to those who endorse increased selection in the education system, suggesting that the most able might benefit from a more selective system and that the negative impact of selection on the rest of the school population is likely to be small. However, the new forms of selection being introduced into the education system today are very different from the UK grammar school system of the 1960s. Furthermore, there are myriad other differences between the current UK education system and that of forty years ago, in terms of pupil characteristics, school standards, school enrolment patterns, curricula developments etc. All these other factors will also impact on pupil achievement, and interact with any selection that might be introduced into the system. Further research on current forms of selection is therefore urgently needed. Appended are: (1) Probability of attending a school in selective system conditional on comprehensive school density; and (2) Reduced form effects of local authority share in non-comprehensive schools. (Contains 11 tables and 24 footnotes.)