North West Poverty Monitor 2024: Education
Educational attainment is a major factor in determining a person’s risk of poverty. In the North West, there is variation across the region at each stage of educational development. This page includes education data relating to key developmental stages in a person’s educational journey.
Average Attainment 8 score by local authority
This chart shows the average Attainment 8 score in 2023 across North West top tier/unitary local authorities. An Attainment 8 score is a measure of a student’s average grade across eight GCSE-level qualifications in England. It’s a way of assessing how well students perform in Key Stage 4, which is usually completed when they are 16 years old.
The chart shows considerable variation across the North West.
Highest qualification attained by local authority
This chart shows the highest qualification level attained by residents in each North West local authority.
This data is from 2021. Use the arrows to see charts for different parts of the North West (Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cumbria and Merseyside and Cheshire).
Read more about what these qualification levels mean here.
Key Stage 4 destination by local authority
This chart shows the destination for students who left Key Stage 4 study (primarily 16-year-olds) in 2020/21 and follows their destinations in 2021/22. The data is for all North West top-tier/unitary local authorities.
Across all local authorities, the vast majority of students went into sustained education. There are some difference between areas, however. For example, the destination of 12.3% of students in Knowsley was ‘not recorded as a sustained destination’ compared to just 3% in Trafford.
Percentage of people with a Level 4 qualification or above by ward
Greater Manchester
Merseyside & Cheshire
Lancashire & Cumbria
Greater Manchester
Merseyside & Cheshire
Lancashire & Cumbria
These maps show the percentage of people who have attained a Level 4 qualification or above by ward across Lancashire and Cumbria in 2021. A Level 4 qualification is a qualification that’s equivalent to the first year of a university degree. You can read more about what is considered a Level 4 qualification here.
Percentage of students progressing to higher education by Free School Meal eligibility by local authority
This chart shows what percentage of Free School Meal (FSM) eligible students progress to higher education compared to their non-FSM counterparts. Data is shown for each local authority in the North West. Use the arrows to see charts for different parts of the North West (Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cumbria and Merseyside and Cheshire).
Across all North West local authority areas, FSM eligible pupils are less likely to progress into higher education. However, this ‘gap’ is more pronounced in some areas than others.