These school types are assumed to set children on different trajectories, with research linking selective schools (grammar and private schools) to later success, including higher levels of academic achievement, acceptance at university, and even higher earning potential compared to pupils educated in non-selective schools.
As well as being fee-paying, private schools are often also academically selective. The remainder of students (approximately 7%), are private educated. These schools select their intake based on achievement and ability, assessed by an entrance exam. A small proportion of state-funded schools (163 schools out of 3113 schools in England) are academically selective ‘grammar’ schools. Ninety-three percent of children attend state-funded schools, the majority of which are non-selective 1 (state non-selective). In England, when students transition from primary to secondary school at age 11, they have the option of attending one of three school types. One such predictor that has been hotly debated is school type. Therefore, understanding the potential predictors of academic achievement at this juncture is of great importance. These results show that genetic and exam differences between school types are primarily due to the heritable characteristics involved in pupil admission.Īchievement at the end of full-time compulsory education represents a major tipping point in life, opening up avenues for higher education, including university and beyond. However, once we controlled for factors involved in pupil selection, there were no significant genetic differences between school types, and the variance in exam scores at age 16 explained by school type dropped from 7% to <1%. These results were mirrored in the exam differences between school types. Three times as many students in the top EduYears GPS decile went to a selective school compared to the bottom decile. We found substantial mean genetic differences between students of different school types: students in non-selective schools had lower EduYears GPS compared to those in grammar ( d = 0.41) and private schools ( d = 0.37). We created a genome-wide polygenic score (GPS) derived from a genome-wide association study of years of education ( EduYears). We used a UK-representative sample of 4814 genotyped students to investigate exam performance at age 16 and genetic differences between students in three school types: state-funded, non-selective schools (‘non-selective’), state-funded, selective schools (‘grammar’) and private schools, which are selective (‘private’). However, the possible role of DNA differences between students of different schools types has not yet been considered. These differences are often attributed to value added by the school, as well as factors schools use to select pupils, including ability, achievement and, in cases where schools charge tuition fees or are located in affluent areas, socioeconomic status. On average, students attending selective schools outperform their non-selective counterparts in national exams.
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