Education divide

White schoolchildren in Britain’s poorest areas perform less well than fellow pupils of black, Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin, according to analysis of more than three million sets of exam results.

The Financial Times newspaper reports that exam results for poor white children are worse than for deprived pupils who speak English as a second language. The average black pupil from among the poorest fifth of children achieved one more GCSE pass at A*, the highest grade, than the average white child from a similar background.

Figures from the 2009 National Pupil Database show that poor white children are falling behind as early as the age of seven, although the gap widens dramatically after the age of 11.