**CEP, CEE † UCL ^IoE

1. The Mobility of English School ChildrenStephen Machin**†, Shqiponja Telhaj** and Joan Wilson**^CEE / DCSF Conference: School Transitions and Pupil Mobility, December 5th 2007 **CEP, CEE †UCL ^IoE

2. Importance of Pupil Mobility • What is pupil mobility? “A child joining or leaving a school at a point other than the normal age at which children start or finish their education at that school – whether or not this involves a move of home” (Dobson and Henthorne, 1999, p.5) • Why is it important to look at pupil mobility? Pupil-level: Disruptive to education progression (leads to curriculum discontinuity). School-level: Impacts on school resources and school performance. • Pupil mobility and school accountability measures Ofsted collection of school-level mobility data since 2000. Contextualised value-added indicator of school performance.

3. Data • National Pupil Database (NPD) Pupil-Level Annual School Census (PLASC) and Key Stage (KS) records of attainment. PLASC collects details on the school roll in January each year. PLASC variables of interest: Eligibility for Free School Meals (FSM), SEN status, gender, ethnicity and fluency in English. Dataset gives information on all pupils in all state schools in England, sample size of approx 7mn pupils in primary and secondary schools in each year. Use data for 2 academic years – 2001/2002 and 2002/2003 matched to the most recent prior KS attainment record of each pupil. Consider the extent of and patterns in pupil mobility, associations with pupil and school characteristics.

4. How do we measure mobility? Pupil Mobility= changes in the recorded Register of Educational Establishments (REE) school code for each pupil over the 2 academic years, irrespective of any home moves. Pupil mobility = 1 if school code in year t+1 ≠ school code in year t Home Mobility = changes in the recorded home postcode of each pupil over the 2 academic years. Residential mobility =1 if home postcode of the pupil in year t+1 ≠ home postcode of the pupil in year t Remove compulsory school moves from the analysis and correct for Royal Mail postcode changes over the period 2001-2003. We can look at mobility in the context of institutional movements between schools and movements of home.

5. School movers by year group and key stage, 2001-02 to 2002-03 Notes: The year group definitions 1-2, 2-3 and so on indicate changes between Year 1 and Year 2, Year 2 and Year 3, etc. “All school movers” incorporates all pupils who change REE school code over the academic period 2001-02 to 2002-03, regardless of whether the move is a normal transition expected for that year group. For “non-compulsory school movers”, we exclude compulsory transitions. The remaining non-compulsory movers between Year 6 and 7 (when the move to secondary school occurs) reflect pupils attending middle school who leave later than Year 6.

6. Government Office Region (GOR) mobility ranges between 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 Notes: These mobility ranges are based on non-compulsory school movers.

7. Proportion of school movers and school stayers moving home by year group and key stage, 2001/02 to 2002/03 Notes: “School movers” is based on those moving school other than at compulsory times. The remaining non-compulsory school movers between Years 6 and 7 (when the move to secondary school occurs) reflect pupils attending middle school who leave later than Year 6. Columns showing totals are year group numbers when the REE school code and home postcode information are available for both academic years for the pupil.

8. Empirical Approach Basic idea: to relate mobility Sit (=1 if pupil i moves school between year t and t-1) to pupil characteristics, prior achievement and school prior achievement. Sequentially build up models, all estimated for separate year group transitions.

9. Marginal Effects: Moving school, social background and prior attainment, by year group Notes: Marginal effects from probit models; standard errors (clustered on schools) are given in parentheses. Dependent variable is a dummy taking the value of 1 when a pupil moves school, 0 otherwise, for the sample of non-compulsory school movers. Asterisks indicate statistical significance (**≤0.01, *≤0.05). Includes controls for school fixed effects.

10. Marginal Effects: Pr (H=1|S=1), social background and prior attainment, by year group Notes: Marginal effects from probit models; standard errors (clustered on schools) are given in parentheses. Dependent variable is a dummy taking the value of 1 when a pupil moves school and house, 0 otherwise, for the sample of non-compulsory school movers. Asterisks indicate statistical significance (**≤0.01, *≤0.05). Includes controls for school fixed effects.

11. Marginal Effects: Pr(S=1), social background, prior attainment and average school key stage performance (t-1) by year group Notes: Marginal effects from probit models; standard errors (clustered on schools) are given in parentheses. Dependent variable is a dummy taking the value of 1 when a pupil moves school, 0 otherwise. Asterisks indicate statistical significance (**≤0.01, *≤0.05).

12. Marginal Effects: Pr(move to a higher KS school in period t), by year group Notes: Marginal effects from probit models; standard errors (clustered on schools) are given in parentheses. Dependent variable is a dummy taking the value of 1 when a pupil moves school, 0 otherwise. Asterisks indicate statistical significance (**≤0.01, *≤0.05). Includes 8 regional dummy controls.

13. Summary of Findings • Mobile pupils are:- • More socially disadvantaged • Less likely to have a good education record • Less likely to move if a school has good average performance • More likely to move to better-performing schools than the one they were at, though this is related to family income.