This study examined the representativeness of local communities within the school admissions system by comparing the profile of pupils in schools with that of pupils in the local communities, using school and pupils' home postcodes.

Key findings

It highlighted where differences occurred and raised a number of issues, such as:

• why some voluntary-aided schools appeared to admit lower proportions of pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM) than the proportions living within the local communities, even when compensating for the fact that such schools may serve a larger geographical area
• why academy schools appeared to be admitting higher proportions of pupils with lower key stage 2 (KS2) ability and eligible for FSM compared to the proportions living within the community
• why pupils of black and ethnic minority (BEM) origins appeared to attend schools outside of their local communities more than schools within their local communities
• why, when there were two community schools serving the same postcode area, there were occurrences where there were differences in the proportions of pupils eligible for FSM in the two schools.

Chamberlain, T., Rutt, S. and Fletcher-Campbell, F. (2006). Admissions: Who Goes Where? Messages from the Statistics (LGA Research Report 4/06). Slough: NFER.