Abstract
Pupils of religious foundation schools in England show superior educational performance over general (Local Education Authority) schools, the advantage having been estimated in previous studies at learning about a tenth faster for the average pupil by the age of leaving primary schooling (age 11+). In this study access to individual pupils’ scores at SAT tests shows that the advantage of religious foundation schools is particularly great for lower-attaining pupils, with only the lowest tenth of those in religious schools attaining the scores of the lowest third in general schools.
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