Rural England
Educational attainment at age 11
Key points
- In 2009, around two-fifths of pupils in rural districts who were eligible for free school meals do not achieve basic standards in literacy and numeracy (i.e. level 4 at Key Stage 2). This compares with 15-20% for pupils not eligible for free school meals.
- Both proportions are similar to their urban counterparts.
- Among those eligible for free school meals, somewhat fewer girls do not achieve basic standards in literacy and numeracy than boys but the differences are relatively small.
- See the UK indicator on results at Key Stage 2.
Graph 1: By gender and free school meal eligibility
View Graph as PDF (resizeable) Right click to save large version of Graph as PNG
Rural/urban ratios (urban = 10)
On most poverty and social exclusion indicators, rural areas have 'better scores' than urban areas. The purpose of the table below is to differentiate between those subjects where rural areas are 'a bit better' and those where rural areas are 'a lot better'. It does so by presenting the rural statistics for the indicator as a proportion of the urban statistics. So, for example, a rural 'score' of 6 in the table below means that the rural statistic is around 60% of its urban equivalent.
| Type of district | Eligible for free school meals | Not eligible for free school meals | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boys | Girls | Boys | Girls | |
| 'Very rural' districts | 11 | 11 | 10 | 10 |
| 'Mostly rural' districts | 11 | 11 | 10 | 10 |
| 'Part rural' districts | 11 | 11 | 9 | 9 |
Definitions and data sources
The graphs
For each type of local authority district, the graph shows the proportion of children failing to achieve level 4 at key stage 2 (average for English and maths). The data is shown separately by gender and eligibility for free school meals.
The data is for maintained schools only (i.e. not independent schools).
Rural-urban designations are based on the home addresses of the pupils and not on the location of the schools they attend.
Since entitlement to free school meals is essentially restricted to families in receipt of out-of-work benefits, this should be thought of as a proxy for worklessness rather than low income.
Level of the data
Lower tier local authorities (districts), as classified by the DEFRA 2009 classification system. Both the DEFRA classification rules and their results by local authority can be found on the page on rural/urban classification systems.
Source
The English National Pupil Database. The data covers all maintained schools (i.e. includes special schools).
The numbers
| Type of district | Eligible for free school meals | Not eligible for free school meals | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boys | Girls | Boys | Girls | |||||
| 'Very rural' districts | 1,000 | 41% | 800 | 36% | 5,200 | 20% | 3,800 | 15% |
| 'Mostly rural' districts | 1,700 | 43% | 1,400 | 36% | 6,800 | 19% | 5,000 | 15% |
| 'Part rural' districts | 1,800 | 43% | 1,500 | 37% | 6,200 | 18% | 4,800 | 15% |
| Urban districts | 13,800 | 38% | 11,200 | 32% | 28,100 | 20% | 21,300 | 16% |