Here at Datalab, we never tire of thinking about Key Stage 5 subject choice. I’ve already written about how it varies by gender, geographical area, disadvantage status and prior attainment.
And we’re not done yet. Today I’m going to look at how KS5 subject choice varies by ethnicity. I’ll be using data from the National Pupil Database, focusing on students who completed KS5 in 2022.
First of all, a note on how I’ll be defining ethnicity. I’ll use the DfE’s ‘ethnic group minor’ categories. These are shown in the table below along with the total number of KS4 pupils who fell into each category in 2020.
I have amalgamated the ‘no data obtained’ and ‘refused to say’ categories into ‘no data available’.
White British students made up just under 70% of the KS4 population. The next largest groups were other White and Pakistani.
