Inequalities in quality of education by region
About 2 mins
Key points
- London schools have higher Ofsted quality of education ratings than other regions in England where 27% of primary schools were rated ‘outstanding,’ while in other regions the proportion ranges from 5% to 9%.
- The South West has the fewest ‘good’ and ‘outstanding’ primary schools (78%), while the North West has the fewest ‘good’ and ‘outstanding’ secondary schools in any region (66%).
Education plays an important role in shaping people’s health by influencing factors such as income and employment. In turn, these provide the resources people need to maintain good health, such as access to nutritious food and safe housing. It can also support better health literacy, making it easier for people to understand health information and allow more informed health choices as a result.
A good school environment can provide children with academic, emotional and developmental benefits but research has found that there have been big geographical disparities in the quality of school environments.
This chart shows the proportion of state-funded primary and secondary schools in England by their Ofsted quality of education rating and grouped by region.
There are more pronounced regional differences between the quality of education in secondary schools than in primary schools:
- In London, 27% of primary schools were rated ‘outstanding,’ while in other regions the proportion ranges from 5% to 9%.
- London has the highest proportion of ‘good’ and ‘outstanding’ primary schools at 93%, while the South West has the lowest at 78%.
- London has the highest proportion of ‘good’ and ‘outstanding’ secondary schools at 89%, while the North West has the lowest at 66%
- 10% of secondary schools in London were rated ‘inadequate’ or ‘requires improvement’, compared to 21% in the West Midlands (second lowest share) and 34% in the North West (highest share).
- No secondary schools in London were rated ‘inadequate’ (all of the 10% of schools above were rated ‘requires improvement’).
- This analysis uses the ‘quality of education’ Ofsted domain, one of the domains that contribute to overall school inspection judgements. Although single-word judgements for overall school ratings are no longer used, they are still used for the underlying domains that contribute to the overall scores. Within the ‘quality of education’ domain, Ofsted rates schools as ‘inadequate’, ‘requires improvement’, ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’.
Source: Ofsted, State-funded schools inspections and outcomes, England, 2024
