Attainment at age 11
Published:
11 September 2024
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Data on the percentage of pupils meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths by the age of 11 years, by socio-economic background.
Summary main findings
Disadvantaged children are less likely than non-disadvantaged children to reach the expected standard in reading, writing and maths by the end of key stage 2.
The ‘disadvantage gap’ is wider now than before the COVID-19 pandemic. It went down in the 9 school years to July 2019. It then went up in the 2021 to 2022 school year to the highest level since 2012, and has stayed about the same.
In the 2022 to 2023 school year:
- 60% of pupils met the expected standard – up from the previous school year (59%), but below the 2018 to 2019 school year (65%)
- 44% of disadvantaged pupils and 66% of non-disadvantaged pupils met the expected standard
- girls were more likely than boys to reach the expected standard – but the gap between pupils from disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged backgrounds was similar for girls (23 percentage points) and boys (22 percentage points)
- there were large variations between pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM) in different ethnic groups – 71% of FSM-eligible children in the Chinese ethnic group met the expected standard, compared with 14% of Gypsy or Roma children
- there were improvements for pupils in some white and mixed ethnic groups – for example, 39% of White Irish pupils met the expected standard, compared with 34% in the previous school year
By disadvantage status over time
Visualisation
Percentage of pupils meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths by the end of key stage 2, by disadvantage status over time (England, September 2015 to July 2023)
Click or tap on legend items to toggle visibility
Data
| School year | Disadvantaged (%) | Not known to be disadvantaged (%) | All pupils (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022/23 | 44 | 66 | 60 |
| 2021/22 | 43 | 66 | 59 |
| 2020/21 | No data | No data | No data |
| 2019/20 | No data | No data | No data |
| 2018/19 | 51 | 71 | 65 |
| 2017/18 | 51 | 70 | 64 |
| 2016/17 | 47 | 67 | 61 |
| 2015/16 | 39 | 60 | 53 |
Download
For the full download file, see Download the data.
By year
Visualisation
Disadvantage attainment gap index over time (England, September 2010 to July 2023)
Data
| School year | Disadvantage attainment gap index |
|---|---|
| 2022/23 | 3.21 |
| 2021/22 | 3.23 |
| 2020/21 | No data |
| 2019/20 | No data |
| 2018/19 | 2.91 |
| 2017/18 | 2.90 |
| 2016/17 | 3.00 |
| 2015/16 | 3.03 |
| 2014/15 | 3.10 |
| 2013/14 | 3.15 |
| 2012/13 | 3.16 |
| 2011/12 | 3.23 |
| 2010/11 | 3.34 |
Download
For the full download file, see Download the data.
By area
Visualisation
Percentage of students meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths by the end of key stage 2, by region and eligibility for free school meals (FSM) (England, school year 2022 to 2023)
41 regions in the UK are ranked from the lowest to highest values. They are then divided into 5 equally-sized groups (‘quintiles’), from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest).
The lines either side of the dots represent confidence intervals – the range of values that the 'true' value for each region is highly likely to be within. In many cases the confidence intervals overlap. This suggests differences between specific regions may not be statistically significant.
The regional estimates have a large margin of error – do not rank or compare specific regions. See the composite indices for more precise estimates and to understand overall regional patterns.
Data
| Region | FSM eligible (%) | Not FSM eligible (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire | 38.6 | 63.5 |
| Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire | 37.8 | 65.7 |
| Cheshire | 42.3 | 67.2 |
| Cornwall and Isles of Scilly | 41.4 | 63.4 |
| Cumbria | 36.1 | 62.1 |
| Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire | 42.5 | 65.7 |
| Devon | 38.6 | 62.4 |
| Dorset and Somerset | 37.6 | 61.6 |
| East Anglia | 37.0 | 61.1 |
| East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire | 46.6 | 65.7 |
| Essex | 41.8 | 67.1 |
| Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Bath/Bristol area | 35.6 | 63.9 |
| Greater Manchester | 44.6 | 66.1 |
| Hampshire and Isle of Wight | 39.0 | 64.5 |
| Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire | 38.4 | 65.1 |
| Inner London - East | 58.1 | 72.7 |
| Inner London - West | 57.4 | 76.8 |
| Kent | 38.9 | 65.7 |
| Lancashire | 41.9 | 64.6 |
| Leicestershire, Rutland and Northamptonshire | 42.8 | 63.6 |
| Lincolnshire | 38.5 | 62.7 |
| Merseyside | 41.8 | 65.9 |
| North Yorkshire | 35.3 | 63.2 |
| Northumberland, and Tyne and Wear | 46.3 | 68.9 |
| Outer London - East and North East | 51.9 | 70.7 |
| Outer London - South | 49.1 | 72.5 |
| Outer London - West and North West | 50.5 | 71.7 |
| Shropshire and Staffordshire | 43.7 | 64.4 |
| South Yorkshire | 41.0 | 64.7 |
| Surrey, East and West Sussex | 37.1 | 65.5 |
| Tees Valley and Durham | 47.8 | 67.6 |
| West Midlands | 47.4 | 65.0 |
| West Yorkshire | 42.1 | 65.2 |
Download
For the full download file, see Download the data.
By sex
Visualisation
Percentage of pupils meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths by the end of key stage 2, by disadvantage status and sex (England, school year 2022 to 2023)
Click or tap on legend items to toggle visibility
Data
| Disadvantage status | Boys (%) | Girls (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Disadvantaged | 41 | 47 |
| Not known to be disadvantaged | 63 | 70 |
Download
For the full download file, see Download the data.
By ethnicity
Visualisation
Percentage of FSM-eligible pupils meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths by the end of key stage 2, by ethnicity (England, school year 2022 to 2023)
Data
| Ethnicity | Percentage (%) |
|---|---|
| Asian - Bangladeshi | 63 |
| Asian - Chinese | 71 |
| Asian - Indian | 60 |
| Asian - Pakistani | 53 |
| Asian - Any other Asian | 54 |
| Black - Black African | 58 |
| Black - Black Caribbean | 43 |
| Black - Any other Black background | 48 |
| Mixed - White and Asian | 52 |
| Mixed - White and Black African | 51 |
| Mixed - White and Black Caribbean | 41 |
| Mixed - Any other Mixed background | 50 |
| White - White British | 40 |
| White - Gypsy or Roma | 14 |
| White - Irish | 39 |
| White - Traveller of Irish heritage | 18 |
| White - Any other White background | 42 |
Download
For the full download file, see Download the data.
About the data
Data source
Department for Education (DfE). National curriculum assessments at key stage 2 in England, 2023.
Time period
- September 2015 to July 2023 (By disadvantage status over time)
- September 2010 to July 2023 (By year)
- 2022 to 2023 school year (By area, sex and ethnicity)
Geographic area
England
What the data measures
The data shows the percentage of pupils who met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths at the end of key stage 2, when pupils are usually 11 years old.
Disadvantaged pupils are those who:
- were registered as eligible for free school meals at any point in the last 6 years
- are looked after by a local authority in England and Wales, or who left local authority care through adoption, a special guardianship order, a residence order or a child arrangements order
Eligibility for free school meals (FSM) is used as an indicator of deprivation by the Department for Education. Children are eligible for FSM if their parents receive certain benefits.
The ‘disadvantage gap index’ summarises the relative attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and all other pupils.
Comparisons are made by:
- ordering pupil scores in reading and maths assessments at the end of key stage 2
- assessing the difference in the average position of disadvantaged pupils and others
- subtracting the mean rank of pupils in the disadvantaged and other pupil groups from one another and multiplying by a factor of 20
Scores range from -10 to 10. A score of 0 means there is no gap and a score greater than 0 means disadvantaged pupils do worse than non-disadvantaged pupils.
Things you need to know
Attainment for the most recent 2 years is not directly comparable with the 2 school years ending in July 2017. This is because of changes to teacher assessment frameworks in 2018. Data was not collected during the 2 school years ending in July 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Type of data
Administrative data
Full report
Read more in State of the Nation 2024 on GOV.UK.
Download the data
Download full dataset (CSV, 33KB)
This file contains the following variables:
- Indicator code
- Indicator name
- Area type
- Area code
- Area name
- Time period
- Socio-economic background
- Age
- Sex
- Category type
- Category
- Value
- Sample size
- Unit
- Quintile
Page history
Publication release date:
11 September 2024