Long-Term Changes in the School Attainment of a National Sample of Children

This paper presents data from the National Child Development Study which examine the extent to which the same children performed relatively well, or poorly, at each stage of their school career. Between the ages of 7 and 11 about two-thirds of the children remained in the top third of the range of scores, while the corresponding proportion of children in the same (top) range at both eleven and 16 was about three-quarters. (The figures were similar for those in the lowest third of the distribution.) In other words, changes in relative performance were more likely to take place in the primary than in the secondary school. Altogether over the nine year period about 40 per cent of the children remained in the same broad band of attainment. The children whose attainment improved considerably in comparison with their peers were often fairly similar in their characteristics to those children who obtained high scores at each age; for example they were from non-manual social classes, with parents of a higher educational level, from the South of England and in small families. Conversely those whose performance deteriorated considerably were more similar to the group who consistently obtained low scores.