Against the Odds: achieving greater progress for disadvantaged students at Progress 8

There is a persistent attainment gap between children entitled to free school meals and those who are not. This gap is evident at every stage of education from Key Stage 1 phonics right through to A level and beyond.

However, in both 2017 and 2018, in 6 per cent of secondary schools, GCSE Progress 8 scores were higher amongst disadvantaged students than the school average. This means children from very poor backgrounds made more progress from Key Stage 2 relative to their starting points compared to the school average.

These schools have varying sizes of FSM population and are different in their contexts. This study is designed to build on similar work and to understand whether there are factors which are consistent across these schools and which influencing aspects make the greatest difference in the better performance of disadvantaged pupils, compared to the average.

We expect the research proposal to explore issues such as the school environment, the ethnic mix, primary to secondary transition strategies, the school's approach to attendance and absence, use of the pupil premium, the teacher turnover rate and levels of parental engagement with the school. We are hoping to find out what schools are doing to have relative success with disadvantaged cohorts and what are the necessary characteristics to create an environment which results in disadvantaged children to perform better than their peers, relative to their starting points, in the same school.

The aim is to find answers from schools operating particularly successfully with disadvantaged students in different contexts which will, in turn, allow us to develop practitioner-focused guides and tools which teachers and leaders in schools can use to close their attainment gaps. We are very conscious that what works in one school will not necessarily always be transferable to another, and therefore, it is imperative that the research explores schools with different contexts.