Today, the Sutton Trust has published Social Selection on the Map, which provides an in-depth analysis of geographical patterns of socio-economic segregation in the comprehensive school system. Together with the accompanying publication of the School Admissions Dashboard, an interactive map, it provides unprecedented insight into the dynamics of secondary school admissions in England at a local and regional level.  As with Selective Comprehensives 2024, we again find that many schools do not fully serve their local communities, with social segregation apparent.

The first thing that strikes you when looking at the map is the number of red and pink dots, indicating a negative FSM gap—meaning these schools take on fewer children eligible for Free School Meals than live in their catchment area.

Interestingly, while 47% of state non-selective teachers acknowledge social segregation issues within the system, they are less likely to identify if their own school contributes to the problem. I recommend using the tool to find your school and confirm if perceptions match reality.

Once you have identified your school you can helpfully click on the filter options to contextualise your data and identify which FSM category and FSM gap category you fall into. It might be that you have a lower than national level of FSM pupils in your school but higher than local levels, meaning that you are doing better than you might have otherwise thought. Equally the converse could be true, and your school is not as inclusive as you had believed. If this is the case the Sutton Trust is able to support you through our Fair School Admissions Pledge.

I will be honest, the next thing I wanted to know about was how the schools I have worked at in my career matched up to other schools in the local area (surely, I can’t be the only one who would have this curiosity!). The map allows you to zoom in so you can get a visual snapshot of an area, and you can also hover over dots to get specific information. This will help you to build up an understanding of the interdependency of your local school family. Perhaps in your local area there are 1 or 2 schools taking most of the FSM pupils and you need to work as a group of leaders to readdress the balance. You could also look at neighbouring local authorities to find an area which has a fairer mix of pupils and ask them how they manage their admissions.

You could also use the map to compare your school to the national picture. For example, using the P8 or A8 filters to look at schools with similar outcomes to compare your intakes. This could give you interesting insights into priorities for the year ahead.

One thing I love about this map is that it allows leaders to access the wealth of knowledge and expertise that already exists in the sector and I highly recommend using the filters to select schools with similar FSM gaps and intakes to you. For example, let’s say you work at a school with above national level of FSM and a positive FSM gap of +5%. You can select these criteria using the filters and then add an additional filter for schools in the top P8 category. This identifies over twenty-five schools from which you could learn.

The map is accompanied by an in-depth analysis of the data which will yield further interesting patterns and trends for leaders to be aware of. One of the most exciting patterns found here relates to attainment and level of social segregation. The analysis shows that there is no correlation between the overall attainment in a local authority and the level of social segregation in its schools suggesting that there would be no negative impact on performance of investing in social diversity in schools. However, a correlation was found between levels of social segregation and size of attainment gap, suggesting that LA’s interested in reducing their attainment gap should consider prioritising improving social diversity in their schools.

There are some limitations to bear in mind. There are some schools we don’t have data for, often Free Schools or for schools with very low numbers of children eligible for FSM. Additionally, the map cannot portray the nuances that each local authority is contending with, such as temporary population bulges. It is also worth noting that the data is from 2019 to 2022. Change can happen quickly in a school and the current data of any school could be different. Similarly, the data only reflects their year 7 intake each year and sometimes FSM levels fluctuate across a school, especially when they have been on rapid improvement journeys. We also know that P8 scores have fluctuated in a post-Covid world.

Ultimately, as with all quantitative data, the map can indicate some patterns and trends and give us some insight into what is happening. But as leaders it is our job to pull that apart, ask questions and find out why that is happening so that we can improve things for the next cohort of young people in our schools.