Average income deprivation percentile of the neighbourhoods schools are located in by Ofsted rating (2024)
Last updated: January 2025
Next estimated update: January 2026
What’s this?
This chart compares the levels of income deprivation in the neighborhoods where schools are located, based on their overall Ofsted ratings. The income deprivation percentile shows how deprived a neighbourhood is compared to all others. The higher the number, the more deprived the neighbourhood.
Ofsted overall ratings were given to schools by inspectors and range from “Inadequate” to “Outstanding”. Ratings were based on a range of observations about a school's performance. These overall ratings have now been abolished, and there is a consultation on a suggested "report card" system due in January 2025. We will be reviewing this indicator when the new data are available.
What does it show?
On average, the better a school’s Ofsted rating is, the less deprived a neighbourhood it tends to be located in. This is especially the case for London primary schools, where schools with “Inadequate” ratings are, on average, in significantly more deprived neighbourhoods than “Good” or “Outstanding”.
While this relationship is seen across the rest of the country for both primary and secondary schools, secondary schools in London show a slightly different pattern. Deprivation in the neighbourhood where an inadequate London secondary school is situated tends to be lower than in the rest of England, and is nearly the same as the deprivation levels of neighbourhoods of outstanding secondary schools.
This suggests that secondary school quality for London children may not be as closely associated with deprivation and so children in deprived areas may have better access to good or outstanding secondary schools than in the rest of the country. Please note this analysis looks at deprivation of each school’s neighbourhood not at school ratings for all deprived neighbourhoods so this should be treated as indicative.
This difference between education in London and the rest of England is also evident in other indicators on London’s Poverty Profile, including those summarising the attainment of students, particularly those from low-income backgrounds.
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