Pupil demographics

Here at Datalab, we’re nothing if not innovative.[1] And so when we heard about some recent work from researchers at the University of Glasgow that uses the new (to us) method of latent class analysis to explore links between attainment, exclusions and attendance in Scotland, we thought we’d see what insights it could offer us into low attaining Key Stage 4 pupils in England. Latent class analysis is a way of identifying groups of people with similar characteristics or behaviour.

Children in need are a legally defined[1] group of children assessed as needing help and protection as a result of risks to their development or health. This group includes children on child in need plans, children on child protection plans, children looked after by local authorities, care leavers and disabled children.

In the first part of this article, we examined how national gaps in Progress 8 scores between disadvantaged pupils and their peers could be split into two parts, one based on within-school gaps and the other based on between-school gaps. In this second part, we look at how these gaps vary by region. Once again, we use published school-level Key Stage 4 data for 2024. Part one gives details about how we split the Progress 8 gap between and within schools at a national level.