Margaret Mullane was contacted by the Sutton Trust, who have published new research showing that the top 500 secondary schools take in a lower proportion of pupils eligible for both free school meals and SEN support than live in their catchment area.
The report, Selective Inclusion, shows that:
- The top schools for attainment take in just half as many disadvantaged pupils with SEND as the average comprehensive, and 35% fewer than live in their catchment area.
- 41% of school leaders believe some schools in their area actively discouraged applications from pupils with SEND, suggesting this is often a deliberate strategy by schools to limit the numbers of these pupils.
- When asked what would most help them to educate more pupils with SEND, two-thirds (66%) of school leaders said more teachers or teaching assistants were needed, 58% wanted more specialist support, such as speech and language support, and 28% wanted better training on SEND and inclusion.
The report is accompanied by an updated ‘School Admissions Dashboard’ showing how well each state secondary school across England represents its local community.
The full report can be found here and the press release is here.
Here is more of their findings on social media, Bluesky thread exploring the findings is here, X/Twitter thread is here, and LinkedIn post is here.