For our inquiry we decided for pragmatic reasons to focus on FSM-eligible pupils. This is an imperfect measure, but data on FSM-eligibility and attainment is available for multiple cohorts at many stages of education, giving a good idea of the journey that disadvantaged White pupils go on. We know that this group does not map exactly on to ‘White working-class’, but this is a familiar term and one which occurred spontaneously from witnesses and written evidence. In this report we will use bot...

For our inquiry we decided for pragmatic reasons to focus on FSM-eligible pupils. This is an imperfect measure, but data on FSM-eligibility and attainment is available for multiple cohorts at many stages of education, giving a good idea of the journey that disadvantaged White pupils go on. We know that this group does not map exactly on to ‘White working-class’, but this is a familiar term and one which occurred spontaneously from witnesses and written evidence. In this report we will use both ‘White working-class’ and ‘disadvantaged White’ to refer to White pupils who are eligible for FSM. Type: conclusion | Number: 1 | Paragraph: 17 | Response status: under_consideration Government response: We recognise that eligibility for Free School Meals (FSM) is an imperfect measure of disadvantage. We are continuously looking at our FSM data and are working closely with DWP to see where improvements can be made. The FSM Universal Credit protections remain in place, meaning that anyone claimi