Academic year 2024/25

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: 5 June 2025
• Last updated: 25 September 2025

2 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.

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This includes all data sets, guidance files and any supporting files

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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).

16 featured tables

• Alternative provision - by sex - 2017/18 to 2024/25

  Table showing the number of pupils in other local authority funded alternative provision from 2017/18 to 2024/25, by sex

  View, edit or download

• First language of pupils by school type, 2023/24 and 2024/25

  Number and percentage of pupils

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• FSM eligibility by ethnicity 2015/16 to 2024/25

  Percentage of pupils FSM eligible

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• FSM Eligibility by National Curriculum Year Group 2015/16 to 2024/25

  Percentage of pupils FSM eligible

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• FSM eligibility by region, England, 2015/16 to 2024/25

  Percentage of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals

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• FSM eligibility by school type, England, 2015/16 to 2024/25

  Pupils known to be eligible for free school meals by school type

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• Infant average class sizes (reception plus KS1), England, 2015/16 to 2024/25

  Average size of infant classes, infant constituted of reception plus KS1

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• Infant classes by size of class, England, 2022/23 to 2024/25

  Number of infant (reception plus KS1) classes and pupils by size band of class

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• KS2 average class sizes, England, 2015/16 to 2024/25

  Average number of pupils per class in Key Stage 2

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• KS2 classes by size of class, England, 2022/23 to 2024/25

  Number of classes and pupils by size band of class

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• Primary and secondary average class sizes 2015/16 to 2024/25

  Average class sizes

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• Pupil ethnicity, 2022/23 to 2024/25

  Number and percentage of pupils

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• Universal Infant Free School Meal (UIFSM) uptake by FSM Eligibility 2015/16 to 2024/25

  Number of infant (reception plus key stage 1) pupils taking a free school meal on census day, by whether or not they were FSM eligible under the income criteria

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• Young carers, 2022/23 to 2024/25

  Number of pupils recorded as young carers by schools, first included in school census January 2023 to 2025

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• Number of schools and number of pupils attending by type of school 2015/16 to 2024/25

  Includes pupil headcount and number of schools

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• Number of schools and pupils, by school type, 2015/16 to 2024/25

  Headcount of pupils and number of schools - includes state-funded schools, non-maintained special schools and independent schools

  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.

16 data sets available for download

Download all (ZIP)

• Pupil characteristics - number of pupils by age and sex

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Pupils in state-funded nursery, primary, secondary and special schools, non-maintained special schools, pupil referral units and independent schools.

  • Number of rows: 703,269
  • Indicators:
    • Full time equivalent
    • Full time pupils
    • Headcount
  • Filters:
    • Pupil age
    • Pupil sex
    • School type
  • Time period: 2015/16 to 2024/25

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Pupil characteristics - number of pupils by national curriculum year group and sex

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Pupils in state-funded nursery, primary, secondary and special schools, non-maintained special schools, pupil referral units and independent schools.

  • Number of rows: 603,540
  • Indicators:
    • Full time equivalent
    • Full time pupils
    • Headcount
  • Filters:
    • Pupil sex
    • School type
    • Year group
  • Time period: 2015/16 to 2024/25

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Pupil characteristics - number of pupils by ethnicity and language

  Local authority, National, Regional

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

  • Number of rows: 220,340
  • Indicators:
    • Headcount
    • Percent
  • Filters:
    • Ethnicity
    • First language
    • School type
  • Time period: 2015/16 to 2024/25

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Pupil characteristics - number of pupils by fsm eligibility

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Pupils in state-funded nursery, primary, secondary and special schools, non-maintained special schools and pupil referral units by FSM eligibility.

  • Number of rows: 58,814
  • Indicators:
    • FSM - Percentage of pupils
    • Headcount
  • Filters:
    • Free School Meals
    • School type
  • Time period: 2015/16 to 2024/25

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Class sizes - state-funded primary and secondary schools

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Number of pupils and classes and average class sizes for state-funded primary and secondary schools, including infant and key stage 2 class sizes.

  • Number of rows: 25,548
  • Indicators:
    • Average class size
    • Number of classes
    • Number of pupils
  • Filters:
    • Size of class
    • Type of class
  • Time period: 2015/16 to 2024/25

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Alternative provision - local authority funded placements - placement counts

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Number of pupils in local authority funded alternative provision.

  • Number of rows: 2,207
  • Indicators:
    • Number of placements
  • Filters:
    • Type of setting
  • Time period: 2022/23 to 2024/25

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Alternative provision - local authority funded placements - setting type and placement reason

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Number of placements in local authority funded alternative provision by placement reason and setting type.

  • Number of rows: 10,174
  • Indicators:
    • Number of placements
    • Percentage of placements
    • Total placements
  • Filters:
    • Reason for AP placement
    • Type of setting
  • Time period: 2017/18 to 2024/25

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Alternative provision - local authority funded placements - pupil counts

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Number of pupils in local authority funded alternative provision.

  • Number of rows: 135,450
  • Indicators:
    • Headcount
  • Filters:
    • Ethnicity
    • Free school meals
    • Pupil age
  • Time period: 2017/18 to 2024/25

  Data set information page
  Create table

• FSM eligibility by ethnicity or national curriculum year group

  Local authority, National, Regional

  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 or year group.

  • Number of rows: 502,121
  • Indicators:
    • Number of pupils
    • Percentage
    • Total headcount
  • Filters:
    • Characteristics
    • FSM Eligibility
    • School type
  • Time period: 2015/16 to 2024/25

  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: 38,495
  • Indicators:
    • Number of infant pupils taking a meal
    • Percentage of infant pupils taking a meal
    • Total number of infant pupils
  • Filters:
    • FSM eligibility
    • Lunch taken
    • School type
  • Time period: 2015/16 to 2024/25

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Young carers by national curriculum year group

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Pupils in state-funded nursery, primary, secondary and special schools, non-maintained special schools and pupil referral units who have been identified as a young carer.

  • Number of rows: 50,872
  • Indicators:
    • Number of pupils
    • Percentage
    • Total headcount
  • Filters:
    • Characteristics
    • Known to be a young carer
    • School type
  • Time period: 2022/23 to 2024/25

  Data set information page
  Create table

• School arranged alternative provision - by characteristics

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Number of pupils in school arranged alternative provision, by pupil characteristics.

  • Number of rows: 71,105
  • Indicators:
    • Number of pupils
  • Filters:
    • Pupil characteristic
    • Type of setting
  • Time period: 2022/23 to 2024/25

  Data set information page
  Create table

• School arranged alternative provision - by placement reason

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Number of pupils in school arranged alternative provision, by reason for placement.

  • Number of rows: 12,206
  • Indicators:
    • Number of pupils
  • Filters:
    • Placement Reason
    • Type of setting
  • Time period: 2022/23 to 2024/25

  Data set information page
  Create table

• School characteristics

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Number of schools in England, by type, phase, denomination, admission policy, sex, urban/rural and academy status including headcounts and full-time equivalent, language, free school meals, age and national curriculum year breakdowns.

  • Number of rows: 181,105
  • Indicators:
    • FTE pupils
    • First language is known or believed to be English
    • First language is known or believed to be other than English
  • Filters:
    • Academy indicator
    • Denomination
    • School admissions policy
  • Time period: 2015/16 to 2024/25

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Pupil characteristics - Eligibility for FSM at any time during past 6 years

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Information on pupils who are known to have been eligible for free school meals at any time during the previous six years, including by ethnicity and National Curriculum year group.

  • Number of rows: 428,737
  • Indicators:
    • Number of pupils
    • Percentage
    • Total headcount
  • Filters:
    • Characteristics
    • FSM6 Eligibility
    • School type
  • Time period: 2015/16 to 2024/25

  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: 70,094
  • Indicators:
    • Barking and Dagenham
    • Barnet
    • Barnsley
  • Filters:
    • Boarder status
    • School type
    • Year group
  • Time period: 2019/20 to 2024/25

  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 2025

  One row per school at January 2025 - includes school information and pupil characteristics including headcount, year group, age, sex, FSM, ethnicity, language data at school level, and young carers.

  Download (csv, 22 Mb)

• School level underlying data - class sizes - 2024/25

  One row per school at January 2025 - includes class size data for infants and key stage 2, and primary/secondary split

  Download (csv, 10 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 a new tab) (opens in new tab) and is intended to meet at least 3 stars for Open Data (opens in a new tab) (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

These datasets have not had suppression applied.

Conventions

The following convention is used throughout the underlying data. 

‘x’ 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)