Report shows children from low-income backgrounds with special educational needs are underrepresented at England’s highest-performing secondary schools.
The research, published by the Sutton Trust, found that the highest-performing schools take 36% fewer disadvantaged pupils who receive special educational needs (SEN) support compared with the number living locally.
What’s more, there is no such gap for more affluent children with similar needs.
The report, Selective Inclusion, used data from the National Pupil Database and asked over 2,000 school leaders about how poverty and special education needs and disabilities (SEND) affect school admissions.
Top schools take around the same number of pupils with education, health and care plans (EHCPs) as there are in their local area. These pupils have legal priority, but children with SEN support, a lower level of help, are admitted less often.
Researchers discovered children who get free school meals and also have SEN support – called ‘doubly disadvantaged’ by the Sutton Trust – are much less likely to get into top schools.
Against this backdrop, the report outlined worrying admission practices. Two in five school leaders (41%) said some schools try to stop SEND children from applying. This rises to 50% in schools with the most SEND pupils and 33% in schools with the fewest.
School reputation also matters. 63% of leaders said the quality of SEND support affects admissions and 55% said a school’s reputation for inclusivity matters too.
When asked what would help them support more SEND pupils, two thirds said more teachers or teaching assistants. In addition, 58% said more specialist support, like speech and language therapy – this was the second most popular response.
Nick Harrison, CEO of the Sutton Trust, said: ‘It’s appalling that many of the top performing schools take in a lower proportion of SEND pupils than live in their catchment area. This amounts to further social segregation of the school system, and risks entrenching the double disadvantage faced by low-income families whose children also have SEND needs.
‘In many cases, schools appear to be actively discouraging applications from SEND pupils. But we should recognise the tangled web of assessments and incentives, and long-term underfunding, that prevent school leaders taking bolder action on inclusivity.
‘This must change if the government is to deliver on its ambition to create more inclusive schools. Right now, too many young people aren’t able to get the support they need locally, and that’s a disgrace.’
The report recommends that schools carry out annual fair access reviews to assess whether they are serving the full socio-economic range of their community, and that these reviews be extended to consider children with SEND.
The full report can be read here.
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