'State lets down bright pupils from poor areas'

BRIGHT children from under-privileged homes are being failed by the State schools system, a leading education charity warned yesterday.

The state school system is failing bright children from under privileged homes The state school system is failing bright children from under-privileged homes

Pupils attending schools in disadvantaged areas earned half a grade lower GCSE exam results than average, said a report by the Sutton Trust.

And in their best eight GCSEs, pupils at schools regarded as being among the 10 per cent most deprived achieved on average two-and-a-half grades less compared with those in the most advantaged 10 per cent of schools.

They suffered a “double penalty” because they were also entered for fewer exams, the report found.

It warned parents that a child was likely to achieve lower results in a school in a deprived area.

The findings are another blow to Children and Schools Secretary Ed Balls and further undermine Labour’s 1997 election promise to prioritise “education, education, education”.

They are also likely to increase concern among middle-class parents about the inadequacy of schools in many urban areas.

Researchers from the Sutton Trust examined the results of 550,000 pupils who took GCSEs in England in 2006.

Pupils claiming free school meals – those from the poorest backgrounds – were excluded from the research.

The study concluded: “The attainment of otherwise similar pupils in deprived schools lags significantly behind those in the more advantaged schools.”

As well as achieving an overall half a grade less in their GCSEs, the brightest pupils in the poorest schools are 10 times more likely to take a GNVQ vocational qualification, than bright pupils in the richest schools.

Each pupil should have a choice of qualifications but they should be “no more likely” to opt for a vocational course in a poor school than in a rich one, according to Dr Philip Noden and Professor Anne West, of the Education Research Group at the London School of Economics, who carried out the study.

They said: “Personal choice and aspiration should be the driving force for such decisions, not the preference of schools, preoccupied with maximising their position on published league tables.”

Dr Lee Elliot Major, research director at the Sutton Trust, said: “Quite rightly, every parent wants to know whether their son or daughter will progress at the same pace given the overall social make-up of their school.

“This report suggests there are significant differences, so we need to ensure that schools with the most deprived intakes get the support they need to boost achievement, and that wherever possible we have balanced pupil intakes so that the positive peer effect is shared around and we don’t have extreme pockets of affluence and deprivation.”

Children’s Minister Delyth Morgan said: “We want every child to attend an excellent school and the National Challenge will ensure that no school will see less than 30 per cent of pupils leaving with 5 A*-Cs at GCSE including English and maths.”

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