Selective Comprehensives 2024: The Social Composition of Top Comprehensive Schools

This research updates analysis from 2016 which examines the social composition of top performing comprehensives in England compared to all schools nationally. The aim of this research is to assess whether the top performing comprehensives are representative of their local areas in terms of the socio-economic background of their students. The 'top' comprehensives are defined by considering those schools ranking in the top 500 in terms of academic attainment at the end of Key Stage 4. The project used data from the National Pupil Database to estimate the school-level free school meal (FSM) rates of pupils in schools' entry cohorts (generally Year 7) and compare these to the FSM rates of the schools' catchment areas. The focus of the research was to explore whether the FSM rates of the 'top' 500 comprehensive schools (as measured by Progress 8 or Attainment 8) reflected that of their location.