Faith schools do better chiefly because of their pupils’ backgrounds

Faith schools generally achieve better exam results than their counterparts, with Roman Catholic schools doing particularly well. If government proposals go ahead, oversubscribed new faith schools will soon be allowed to select all their pupils according to religion, rather than only half of them. But how much of their success is down to their intake? Rebecca Johnes and Jon Andrews find that much of the difference can be attributed to pupil characteristics such as eligibility for free school meals