There is considerable debate on the merits of extending and strengthening school choice. In England, the controversial Education and Inspections Bill, published on the 28 February 2006, contains a prominent role for ‘school choice’. But the debate lacks some basic information on these...

The aim of this paper is to examine gender related differences in performance at age 16. We investigate a number of possible explanations for the underachievement of boys relative to girls, the so-called ‘gender gap’. We employ a national dataset of the matched exam results of the entire...

This paper focuses on one of the outcomes arising from England’s choice based education system; the extent to which different types of pupils are sorted across schools. Pupil sorting will in turn impact on attainment outcomes, if there are peer group effects operating within schools. We...

We investigate possible explanations for the educational gender gap at age 16. We employ a national dataset of matched exam results of the cohort of pupils who took Key Stage 3 tests in 1999 and GCSEs in 2001. Our key result is the sheer consistency of the gender gap, across both the attainment...

The recently introduced National Pupil Database in England allows the tracking of every child through the compulsory phases of the state education system. The data from Key Stage 2 for three Local Education Authorities are studied, following cohorts of pupils through their schooling. The...

The recently introduced national pupil database in England allows the tracking of every child through the compulsory phases of the state education system. The data from key stage 2 for three local education authorities are studied, following cohorts of pupils through their schooling. The...