Entry into grammar schools in England

Published on 8 November 2013

This research indicates that grammar schools are disproportionately unlikely to admit students who are eligible for free school meals, even when conditioning on their academic performance in primary school.

New work by IFS researchers, funded by the Sutton Trust, suggests that grammar schools are disproportionately unlikely to admit students who are eligible for free school meals, even when conditioning on their academic performance in primary school. They are by contrast disproportionately likely to admit children who have attended private schools before age 11.

This research is published as part of a larger report, Poor Grammar: Entry into Grammar Schools for disadvantaged pupils in England by Jonathan Cribb, Anna Vignoles, Amy Skipp, Fay Sadro and David Jesson.

IFS receives significant funding from the ESRC through the ESRC Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy at the Institute for Fiscal Studies.