'Postcode lottery' of GCSE results

11:05am Wednesday 20th August 2008

England's poorest students' chances of GCSE success are a "postcode lottery", it has been claimed.

A table compiled for the campaign group End Child Poverty, a coalition of organisations, reveals massive discrepancies in the GCSE attainment of the poorest schoolchildren in different education authorities across the country.

It shows that in some areas, fewer than one in four teenagers from deprived backgrounds are achieving good GCSEs (grades A*-C).

Bottom of the table is Nottinghamshire, where just 21.7% of youngsters on free school meals reached five good grades, compared with 59% who are not on free school meals. In south Gloucestershire the percentage of children on free school meals achieving this standard is 21.9% and in Milton Keynes it is 22%.

At the top end of the table is Kensington and Chelsea, where 59% of children on free school meals get five good grades, followed by Tower Hamlets (54.5%) and Rutland (53.3%).

Eight of the top 10 authorities are in London, and overall, London was the best region for children living in poverty to go to school in, with an average of 44.6% achieving five A* to C grades. The worst was the East Midlands, where the average was 28.7%.

End Child Poverty said London's success was due to the large funding boosts the capital has received in recent years, and initiatives such as the London Challenge which have helped improve standards.

In a statement, the group said the GCSE chances of the poorest pupils were a postcode lottery. Hilary Fisher, Director of the Campaign to End Child Poverty, said: "It is unacceptable that children have the odds stacked against them simply by default of having poorer parents. The Government must put its money where its mouth is and end child poverty so that all children, no matter their background, have equal chances to achieve a decent education."

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: "There has been an enormous programme of social reform over the past 10 years that has lifted 600,000 children out of poverty. We are committed to accelerating this and to do this we are narrowing the gap in educational achievement between children from deprived backgrounds and those who are better off."

He added: "These figures show results in London are now higher than the national average following years of under-performance. This shows our investment in deprived inner city areas is paying off and we are committed to replicating this success in other parts of the country."

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