Academic year 2020/21

Schools, pupils and their characteristics

School and pupil statistics for England including age, gender, free school meals (FSM), ethnicity, English as additional language (EAL), class size.

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• Produced by: Department for Education
• Published: 17 June 2021
• Last updated: 25 May 2022

7 updates

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Explore data used in this release

This page provides a range of routes to access data from within this statistical release to suit different users.

Download all data (ZIP)

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• Featured tables

  Featured tables are pre-prepared tables created from a statistical release's data sets. They provide statistics that are regularly requested by users and can be adapted to switch between different categories.

• Data sets: download or create tables

  Data sets present comprehensive open data from which users can create their own tables using the EES table tool or download a zipped CSV file.

• Supporting files

  Supporting files provide an area for teams to supply non-standard files for download by users where required.

• Data guidance

  Description of the data sets included in this release, including information on data sources, coverage, quality and any data conventions used.

• Data catalogue

  Alternatively use our data catalogue to search and filter for specific data sets from this release or our entire library, providing full data summaries, data previews and access to API data sets.

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Featured tables

Featured tables are pre-prepared tables created from a statistical release's data sets. They provide statistics that are regularly requested by some users (such as local councils, regional government or government policy teams) and can be adapted to switch between different categories (such as different geographies, time periods or characteristics where available).

9 featured tables

• Free School Meals - Number and percentage of pupil, by school type, 2015/16 to 2020/21

  Includes the number and percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals in England, by school type, 2015/16 to 2020/21

  View, edit or download

• Alternative provision - by gender - 2017/18 to 2020/21

  Table showing the number of pupils in other local authority funded alternative provision from 2017/18 to 2020/21, by gender

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• Class sizes for state-funded primary and state-funded secondary, 2015/16 to 2020/21

  Table showing the average class size across all classes in primary and secondary schools, 2015/16 to 2020/21

  View, edit or download

• Time series - Number of pupils, by school type, 2015/16 to 2020/21

  Table shows headcount for all pupils, by school type, 2015/16 to 2020/21. Includes state-funded nursery, primary, secondary, special, non-maintained special, pupil referral units and independent schools

  View, edit or download

• Free school meals, by region, 2015/16 to 2020/21

  Percentage of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals by region, England, 2015/16 and 2020/21

  View, edit or download

• Number and percentage of pupils by ethnicity, 2019/20 to 2020/21

  Table showing the number and percentage of pupils by ethnicity for schools in England, 2019/20 to 2020/21

  View, edit or download

• First language, number and percentage of pupils by school type, 2019/20 to 2020/21

  Table showing the number and percentage of pupils whose first language is known or believed to be English, or known or believed not to be English, by school type, 2019/20 to 2020/21

  View, edit or download

• Number of schools and number of pupils attending by type of school (Academy/Local Authority maintained/Independent), 2015/16 to 2020/21

  Table showing the number of schools and number of pupils attending by type of school (Academy/Local Authority maintained/Independent), 2015/16 to 2020/21

  View, edit or download

• Number of schools and pupils, by school type, 2015/16 to 2020/21

  Number of schools and headcount of pupils, by school type, 2015/16 to 2020/21

  View, edit or download

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Data sets: download or create tables

Data sets present comprehensive open data from which users can create their own tables using the EES table tool or download a zipped CSV file.

11 data sets available for download

Download all (ZIP)

• FSM eligibility by ethnicity or national curriculum year group

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Number of pupils in state-funded nursery, primary, secondary and special schools, non-maintained special schools and pupil referral units by free school meal eligibility and ethnicity and year group

  • Number of rows: 301,685
  • Indicators:
    • Number of pupils
    • Percentage
    • Total headcount
  • Filters:
    • Characteristics
    • FSM Eligibility
    • School type
  • Time period: 2015/16 to 2020/21

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Eligibility for FSM at any time during past 6 years

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Number of pupils in state-funded nursery, primary, secondary and special schools, non-maintained special schools and pupil referral units by free school meal eligibility during the past six years

  • Number of rows: 259,767
  • Indicators:
    • Number of pupils
    • Percentage
    • Total headcount
  • Filters:
    • Characteristics
    • FSM6 Eligibility
    • School type
  • Time period: 2015/16 to 2020/21

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Universal Infant Free School Meals (UIFSM)

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Information on the take up of Universal Infant Free School Meals, including by FSM eligibility.

  • Number of rows: 22,961
  • Indicators:
    • Number of pupils
    • Percentage
    • Total headcount
  • Filters:
    • FSM eligibility
    • Lunch taken
    • School type
  • Time period: 2015/16 to 2020/21

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Class sizes - state-funded primary and secondary schools

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Class size information for state-funded primary and secondary schools

  • Number of rows: 41,009
  • Indicators:
    • Average class size
    • Number of classes
    • Number of pupils
  • Filters:
    • Key stage of class
    • Phase of school
    • Primary or secondary class
  • Time period: 2015/16 to 2020/21

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Pupil characteristics - Year group and Gender

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Number of pupils in state-funded nursery, primary, secondary and special schools, non-maintained special schools, pupil referral units and independent schools by national curriculum year and gender.

  • Number of rows: 362,062
  • Indicators:
    • Full time equivalent
    • Full time pupils
    • Headcount
  • Filters:
    • Pupil gender
    • School type
    • Year group
  • Time period: 2015/16 to 2020/21

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Pupil characteristics - Age and Gender

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Number of pupils in state-funded nursery, primary, secondary and special schools, non-maintained special schools, pupil referral units and independent schools by age and gender

  • Number of rows: 421,597
  • Indicators:
    • Full time equivalent
    • Full time pupils
    • Headcount
  • Filters:
    • Pupil age
    • Pupil gender
    • School type
  • Time period: 2015/16 to 2020/21

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Alternative provision - gender, age, free school meals and ethnicity

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Number of pupils in alternative provision, by age, gender, ethnicity and free school meal status

  • Number of rows: 67,467
  • Indicators:
    • Headcount
  • Filters:
    • Ethnicity
    • Free school meals
    • Pupil age
  • Time period: 2017/18 to 2020/21

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Pupil characteristics - Free school meals

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Number of pupils in state-funded nursery, primary, secondary and special schools, non-maintained special schools and pupil referral units by free school meal eligibility including the number of pupils newly eligible for free school meals since March 23rd 2020 (first national lockdown)

  • Number of rows: 35,294
  • Indicators:
    • FSM - Percentage of pupils
    • Headcount
  • Filters:
    • Free School Meals
    • School type
  • Time period: 2015/16 to 2020/21

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Cross border movement

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Includes data on cross border movements (comparing where pupils live and where they attend school), by year group and boarder status

  • Number of rows: 23,261
  • Indicators:
    • Barking and Dagenham
    • Barnet
    • Barnsley
  • Filters:
    • Boarder status
    • School type
    • Year group
  • Time period: 2019/20 to 2020/21

  Data set information page
  Create table

• School characteristics - Phase and type, admissions, denomination, urban-rural, gender

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Number of schools in England, by type, phase, denomination, admission policy, gender, urban/rural and academy status including headcounts and fte, ethnicity, fsm, age and national curriculum year breakdowns

  • Number of rows: 108,225
  • Indicators:
    • Any other Asian background
    • Any other black background
    • Any other ethnic group
  • Filters:
    • Academy indicator
    • Denomination
    • School admissions policy
  • Time period: 2015/16 to 2020/21

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Pupil characteristics - Ethnicity and Language

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Number of pupils in state-funded nursery, primary, secondary and special schools, non-maintained special schools and pupil referral units by language and ethnicity.

  • Number of rows: 133,135
  • Indicators:
    • Headcount
    • Percent
  • Filters:
    • Ethnicity
    • First language
    • School type
  • Time period: 2015/16 to 2020/21

  Data set information page
  Create table

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Supporting files

Supporting files provide an area for teams to supply non-standard files for download by users where required.

2 supporting data files

• School level underlying data 2020/21

  One row per school at January 2021 - includes headcount, FSM, ethnicity, language data at school level

  Download (csv, 21 Mb)

• School level underlying data - class sizes - 2020/21

  One row per school at January 2021 - includes class size data for infants and key stage 2

  Download (csv, 11 Mb)

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Data guidance

Description of the data sets included in this release, including information on data sources, coverage, quality and any data conventions used.

Description

This document describes the data included in the ‘Schools, pupils and their characteristics’ National Statistics release’s underlying data files. This data is released under the terms of the Open Government License (opens in new tab) and is intended to meet at least 3 stars for Open Data (opens in new tab).

The publication methodology, available on the publication report, should be referenced alongside this data. It provides information on the data sources, their coverage and quality as well as explaining methodology used in producing the data.

Coverage

This release provides information on the number of schools and pupils in:

• state-funded primary schools
• state-funded secondary schools
• state-funded special schools
• non-maintained special schools
• pupil referral units
• independent schools
• local authority alternative provision

It includes information on:

• pupil numbers, including headcount and fte, gender, ethnicity, language and free school meals eligibility
• school numbers, including school type, academy status, denomination, admission policy, urban/rural and gender

The information is based on data collected via the pupil level spring school census, school level annual school census, general hospital schools census and alternative provision census.

File formats and conventions

Rounding

This dataset has not had suppression applied.

Conventions

The following convention is used throughout the underlying data. 

‘:’ Not applicable

‘z’ Unknown

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Contact us

If you have a specific enquiry about Schools, pupils and their characteristics statistics and data:

Schools and Pupils Statistics Team

Email: schools.statistics@education.gov.uk
Contact name: Schools and Pupils Statistics Team

Press office

If you have a media enquiry:

Telephone: 020 7783 8300

Public enquiries

If you have a general enquiry about the Department for Education (DfE) or education:

Phone: 0370 000 2288

Opening times

Monday to Friday from 9.30am to 5.30pm (closed on bank holidays)