influence on attainments in Mathematics in Year 5. But for Mathematics children who had 3 or
more early health problems showed lower attainment at the end of Year 5 than those children
who had none (ES = 0.45).
Children who still needed support because of having English as an additional language showed
lower average attainment in Reading (ES = 0.37) and Mathematics (ES = 0.51) than those who
did not need such support. It is particularly interesting that the net effect of EAL support is
stronger for outcomes in Mathematics than in Reading. This may be because EAL support is
more often targeted at Reading but not at Mathematics in primary schools as identified from the
earlier study of information on special educational needs (see Taggart et al., 2004). For ethnic
groups, the relationships (in comparison with the White UK group) indicated that Reading
attainment for two groups; Bangladeshi and White European were significantly lower (ES = 0.35).
This is in line with earlier findings. In Mathematics, Indian children showed particularly high
attainment compared to White UK children (ES = 0.39).
It should be stressed that these differences relating to ethnic groups and EAL are net of the
influences of all other factors in the model, including SES and mother’s qualification level in
which there are also significant differences between ethnic groups which account for much of the
raw differences in average attainment levels identified between different ethnic groups.
Family Measures
A number of family factors were found to have a significant net effect on attainments in Reading
and Mathematics, parents’ qualifications, family SES, eligibility for free school meals (FSM) and
family’s salary.
The free school meals (FSM) proxy measure of low income showed a negative relationship with
attainment in Year 5. The differences were of moderate size (ES = 0.27 for Reading, ES = 0.22
for Mathematics).
In terms of the salary reported by the parents when their children were in Key Stage 1 the results
indicate that children whose parents are on high joint earned incomes (more than £67,000 per
annum) have better scores in Reading than children whose parents have no salary (ES = 0.27).
For Mathematics net effect sizes in the range of 0.20 to 0.30 are found for different salary groups
between £17,500 per annum and more than £67,000 per annum. These effects are broadly in
line with previous reported effects of the employment status of the father.
Mother’s education as measured by highest level of qualification continued to show a consistent
pattern of strong and positive effects. The categories degree and higher degree showed the
strongest positive influence (compared with the group that had no qualifications). In terms of
effect sizes the association was even stronger than reported at earlier time points especially for
Reading in Year 5 (for Reading, ES = 0.64 for mother having a degree versus no qualification,
ES = 0.54 for Mathematics). Figure 1.4 illustrates details on effect sizes for other qualification
levels compared to no qualification for Reading.
Father’s qualification also has a statistically significant effect on children’s attainments, but
mother’s qualification showed a stronger link.