Northern Ireland
Educational attainment at age 11
Key points
- On average, the higher the level of deprivation in a school, the less likely it is that its children will have reached level 4 at age 11. Even so, even in the most deprived fifth of schools, around two-thirds of children do reach this level.
- In English, 36% of 11-year-olds in the most deprived fifth of primary schools failed to reach level 4 in 2007. This compares with an average of 22% for all schools.
- In Maths, the figures were similar but slightly lower: 33% in the most deprived fifth of primary schools failing to reach level 4 compared to 20% for all schools.
- Since 2001, the overall proportion of children failing to reach level 4 has come down by around five percentage points (from 27% to 22% in English and from 25% to 20% in Maths). Over the same period, the proportion of children failing to reach level 4 in the most deprived fifth of schools has come down by around six percentage points (from 42% to 36% in English and from 39% to 33% in Maths). This suggests that the improvement witnessed on average has also occurred in the schools with high levels of deprivation.
- Within Northern Ireland, children attending Catholic-managed schools in the most deprived fifth of all primary schools are less likely to fail to reach level 4 than those attending other schools in the most deprived fifth: in 2007, 32% compared with 42% in English and 31% compared to 37% in Maths. Similar differences can be seen in schools with lower but still above-average deprivation.
Graph 1: Over time
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Graph 2: By deprivation
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Definitions and data sources
This indicator looks at the connection between childhood deprivation and whether children reach minimum educational standards at age 11. This is measured by whether a child reaches level 4 in the Key Stage 2 tests taken by all children in the last year of primary school, where level 4 is the target level for this age group. In Northern Ireland, children take these tests (part of the assessment under the National Curriculum) in addition to the Transfer Test that influences whether they go on to grammar school.
The first graph shows, over time, the proportion of children not achieving level 4 at Key Stage 2 for English and maths, with the data shown separately for all schools and for the fifth of schools with the highest rates of free school meal recipiency.
The second graph shows, for the latest year, how the proportion of children not achieving level 4 at Key Stage 2 for English and maths varies by level of deprivation in the school, with the data shown separately for Catholic-managed and other-managed schools. Each figure is the average for English and maths. The measure of deprivation used is recipiency of free school meals, with the schools grouped into fifths according to the proportion of their pupils receiving free school meals.
The data for both graphs comes from DENI. In the first graph, no data is available for 2004. For any particular year, schools who did not submit Key Stage 2 results have been excluded from the analysis.
Overall adequacy of this data: Medium. Whilst all the data is administrative and so more reliable than survey results, data for a number of schools is not available for some years. Furthermore, schools open and close over time, making the first graph less reliable.