Selectivity, admissions and intakes to ‘comprehensive’ schools in London, England

Abstract

This study focuses on admissions criteria used for ‘comprehensive’ secondary schools in London, UK. It was found that schools whose admissions were controlled by the local authority were more likely to report giving priority to children with medical/social needs and special educational needs than were schools that controlled their own admissions; the latter were more likely to report the use of various potentially ‘creaming’ criteria. There was also more ‘selectivity’ among London comprehensive schools with autonomy over admissions, with higher proportions using potentially selective admissions criteria than in the rest of England. Moreover, it was found that schools with responsibility for their own admissions had lower proportions of pupils with special educational needs and obtained higher scores in public examination ‘league tables’ than schools whose admissions were controlled by the local authority. The findings suggest that some schools, although nominally ‘comprehensive’, appear to restrict access to certain groups of pupils.

Keywords:

• Admissions
• Selection
• Creaming
• Comprehensive schools
• Special educational needs

Acknowledgements

The research reported here was undertaken in collaboration with the Research and Information on State Education (RISE) Trust. We would like to thank RISE for the information, advice and support provided. Thanks are due to Matthew West, Dabney Ingram, Laura Bracking and John Wilkes for research and administrative support; thanks are also due to Robert West and Hazel Pennell for helpful comments. The views expressed are the authors’ own.

Notes

1. Except in the case of fully academically selective ‘grammar’ schools.

2. Our focus in this paper is on state‐maintained schools and excludes city technology colleges and academies, which, although in receipt of government revenue funding, are classified as independent, with capital costs having been met, at least in part, by private‐sector sponsors.

3. More recent initiatives include London Challenge (DfES, 2005b).

4. In some cases, information relating to admission in September 2002 was provided.

5. Inner London, for the purposes of this analysis, comprises the former Inner London Education Authority local authorities: Camden, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith & Fulham, Islington, Kensington & Chelsea, Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth and Westminster (the Corporation of the City of London has no state‐maintained secondary schools). The Outer London local authorities comprise: Barking & Dagenham, Barnet, Bexley, Brent, Bromley, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Haringey, Harrow, Havering, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Kingston, Merton, Newham, Redbridge, Richmond, Sutton and Waltham Forest.

6. These included: selecting a proportion of pupils on the basis of ability/aptitude (e.g. in language, art, music, dance, technology, sport, general ability); interviews with pupils/parents; giving priority to a child of employee/governor/former pupil; giving priority to a child with a family connection with school; giving priority to a child who will benefit on pastoral grounds/compassionate factors; primary school report, headteacher recommendation; academic record of sibling). Altogether 70% of voluntary‐aided and 59% of foundation schools used at least one of the above criteria, compared with 17% of community/voluntary‐controlled schools.

7. In England pupils with special educational needs may, or may not, have a ‘statement’ of special educational needs. Those whose needs have been deemed to be over and above what can be met through normal resources should, in theory, have a ‘statement’ of special educational needs which carries with it additional resources; these follow the pupil to his or her mainstream school to provide additional support (e.g. via a classroom assistant). Pupils whose needs are not deemed to be so great, or for whom the administrative process of seeking a statement has not yet been completed, are classified by the schools as having special educational needs without a statement (no additional resources follow the pupil).

8. The great majority of pupils in England at around the end of compulsory schooling take public examinations known as the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), or equivalent pre‐vocational examinations, in a range of different subjects; it is pupils’ results in these examinations that are addressed in this paper. We focus, in particular, on the percentage of pupils obtaining at least five GCSE passes at grades A*–C; this is a significant indicator not only in terms of the government’s school and college achievement and attainment tables (‘league tables’), but also in terms of future progression to academic post‐compulsory education (academic post‐compulsory education is geared towards General Certificate of Education Advanced levels (GCE A‐levels), which are generally taken in a small number of subjects and are the main requirement for entry into higher education).

9. Ideally, pupil intake would be used to compare the characteristics of pupils entering schools, but matched data were not available for the year in question; moreover, Thomas and Mortimore (1996) estimated that around 70% to 75% of the variation in attainment at the age of 16 is accounted for by the background characteristics of the pupils.

10. Schagen et al. (2002), for example, in their value‐added analyses found that some faith schools performed above expectations on some outcomes: the five Jewish schools in their sample performed well on all but one outcome, and Church of England schools performed well in GCSE English.