Achievement and entitlement to free school meals

The revised Foundation Phase Areas of Learning (AoL) were introduced on a statutory basis from September 2015. This means that the cohort of children that started Reception in September 2015 were the first children to be formally assessed against the revised outcomes at the end of the Foundation Phase in the summer of 2018.

Comparisons of Foundation Phase outcomes with previous years should, therefore, be avoided as they are not measured on a comparable basis.

Following consultation on the publication of teacher assessments data, Foundation Phase, Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 data will no longer be published at a school, local authority and consortia level. For this reason we also no longer publish the statistical model showing the relationship between free school meals and attainment.

The free school meal eligibility status of pupils as at January is collected from schools in the Pupil Level Annual School Census (PLASC). The end of Foundation Phase, Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 results of pupils are collected from schools in the National Data Collection in May to June each year. These datasets have been linked to produce the data presented here.

Due to the movement of pupils between the PLASC census date in January and the assessment period, full coverage of free school meal eligibility and attainment data are not available for all pupils. This is because pupils who leave or join the education system in Wales between the PLASC census day and the time of the assessments (May to June) are not included. Such pupils will either be missing free school meal data or an attainment level.

The matching rates are shown in the ‘Matched Rates’ table in the accompanying spreadsheet. More than 99 per cent of pupils in the attainment data have been successfully matched to the school census in each year at all stages.

Key quality information can be found in 'Foundation phase outcomes and National Curriculum teacher assessment of core subjects at Key Stages 2 and 3' and 'Schools’ Census Results'.

The coefficients used in the models that highlight the relationship between attainment at Foundation Phase, Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 and eligibility for free school meals are available on request.