Overview
The Sutton Trust Social Mobility Index looks at five measures of social mobility through education in each parliamentary constituency in England.
NOTE: The interactive map is now unavailable.
The five indicators are:
1. Performance of disadvantaged pupils in early years test
2. Performance of disadvantaged pupils in Key Stage 2 tests
3. Performance of disadvantaged pupils at GCSE
4. Progress of non-privileged/disadvantaged pupils to universities
5. Progress of non-privileged graduates to professional occupations
How the five indicators have been calculated
The Social Mobility Index ranks all 533 parliamentary constituencies in England according to five measures of social mobility through education. Looking at outcomes from the early years through to professional life, the data shows how well each constituency is doing in improving prospects for their most disadvantaged young people.
We have also included a ranking of disadvantage within each constituency to help put the results in context. This is based on the average percentage of pupils eligible for Pupil Premium funding, across both primary and secondary schools.
NOTE: The data was updated to include FE colleges’ data in September 2015, and this may have changed some constituencies’.
1. Performance of disadvantaged pupils in early years assessments
This indicator is measured by the average results for pupils eligible for Free School Meals in Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) assessments in the constituency.
The measure used is:
- The percentage of young children known to be eligible for Free School Meals achieving a ‘good’ level of development in the EYFS assessments made between the ages of 0 and 5
2. Performance of disadvantaged pupils in Key Stage 2 tests
This indicator is measured by:
- The percentage of disadvantaged children achieving level 5 or above in reading, writing, and maths in Key Stage 2 tests at the age of eleven. Level 5 is a good indicator of high attainment at the end of primary school.
3. Performance of disadvantaged pupils at GCSE
This indicator is measured by a combination of:
- The percentage of disadvantaged children achieving 5A*-C at GCSE (excluding equivalents)
- Average capped KS4 point score (GCSEs only) of disadvantaged children
We calculated the mean score on relevant measures for disadvantaged children, averaged across schools in the constituency .
We then took the average rank across these two indicators to find the overall GCSE ranking.
4. Progress of disadvantaged pupils to universities
As there is no reliable constituency level data for access to universities, local authority level data have been used for this indicator. We have looked at two measures:
- The proportion of young people on Free School Meals progressing to one to the ‘top third’ of universities
- The proportion of young people on Free School Meals progressing to any higher education destination
Where there is no data for the relevant local authority we have not given constituencies a rank on this measure. To get an overall ranking on access to universities we have taken the average of the results for the individual indicators, where available.
5. Progress of non-privileged graduates to professional occupations
The indicator for this measure is the proportion of first generation graduates from the constituency going on to professional jobs.
We have calculated the percentage of first generation graduates domiciled in the constituency who report being in a professional job (defined as a job falling in National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification analytic classes 1.1 or 1.2) or being in further study.
It is restricted to graduates who reported their main activity as being:
- in full or part-time employment
- full or part-time study
- unemployment (excluding graduates who reported their main activity as being ‘other’ or ‘due to start work’).