Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the educational attainment gap between pupils of different (a) ethnic and (b) socio-economic backgrounds.

The department publishes an analysis of pupil performance at the key stage 2 and key stage 4 assessment points each year.

These analyses show that attainment at the end of key stage 2 varies between different ethnic groups. Consistent with previous years, Chinese pupils were the highest achieving group in 2019, with 80% of Chinese pupils reaching the expected standard in all of reading, writing and maths, which is 15 percentage points above the national average. The pattern of attainment across the ethnic major groups has remained largely the same compared to the previous years. Chinese pupils were the highest attaining ethnic group, while black pupils and white pupils were the lowest attaining ethnic groups.

At the end of key stage 4, as in 2018, Chinese, mixed and Asian pupils had Attainment 8 scores above the national average (46.7 in 2019). Average Attainment 8 scores for white pupils and black pupils both remained below the national average.

The latest key stage 2 analysis is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-curriculum-assessments-key-stage-2-2019-revised.

The latest key stage 4 analysis is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/key-stage-4-performance-2019-revised.