Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the average educational attainment is for (a) boys and (b) girls at ages (i) 11, (ii) 16 and (ii) 18 in each (A) county and (B) region of England.

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, most examinations and assessments did not take place in the 2019/20 or 2020/21 academic years. All key stage 2 national curriculum assessments were cancelled for both academic years. Therefore, no key stage 2 attainment data is available for these years.

The department publishes attainment of boys and girls at the end of key stage 2 by local authority and region. The latest figures for the 2018/19 academic year can be found in table L1 of the 'National, local authority and regional tables' here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-curriculum-assessments-key-stage-2-2019-revised[1].

The department also publishes attainment of boys and girls at the end of key stage 4 by local authority and region. These figures are available for the 2020/21 academic year here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/key-stage-4-performance-revised. A pre-created table is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/98e6ae4e-2b02-48cb-898e-c7079dda1490.

Providing an average educational attainment figure requires interpretation because of the numerous qualification types across key stage 5, with different grading structures. Performance tables include the average attainment for each qualification type, specifically A level, Academic, Applied general, Tech level and Technical certificate split by local authority and region. These figures are available for the 2020//21 academic year here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/a-level-and-other-16-to-18-results/2020-21. A pre-created table can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/42ec181e-17d2-488d-b531-514f0d90b0a8

To look at average attainment across all qualification types, the level 2 and 3 attainment by young people aged 19 release is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/level-2-and-3-attainment-by-young-people-aged-19/2019-20.

The attached table shows the attainment of the cohort turning 19 in the years shown. It includes the proportion of that cohort who achieved level 2 by 16 and went on to achieve level 3 by 19, sorted by gender, region, and local authority. County level data is not published.

[1] Download the ‘National, local authority and regional tables’ and go to table ‘Table_L1’.