A free version of our inclusion analysis service, with data for your MAT
Our Analysis of Inclusion in Your MAT
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At Mime, we have a long history of supporting education leaders to understand school improvement and inclusion data, including our popular local authority inclusion index back in 2019. Now with the increased focus on inclusion from both Labour and Ofsted, we have produced similar analysis for Multi-Academy Trusts using data published by the DfE.
What do we mean by inclusion and how can it be measured? In our 2024 report for London Councils we defined inclusion in terms of a universal offer and a culture that welcomes all young people, while the Centre for Young Lives define inclusive schools as those that have “a representative cohort from their community”, and “achieve good outcomes for all”. Though it’s hard to perfectly measure this, in the dashboard below we’ve made an attempt using data that is in the public domain by looking at:
- Whether school populations reflect their local area in terms of SEND, disadvantaged and ethnic diversity, thereby suggesting an inclusive intake
- Exclusions and suspensions, where lower rates suggest a more inclusive culture
- Absence, where lower rates suggest an environment that all young people feel supported and want to come to schools
- Academic outcomes for disadvantaged pupils, compared to disadvantaged pupils elsewhere, where better outcomes suggest an inclusive environment that gives disadvantaged pupils the best chance of success
We then provide an overall inclusion score for your trust by comparing your schools to other schools in the country. For more details, see the methodology section below the analysis.
Health warning!
We recognise that a purely data-led approach to measuring inclusion is not perfect, particularly when restricted to what is already in the public domain. Since this will not show the full picture of inclusion in your schools, this data should only be treated as indicative and not used for accountability purposes. And, we may adjust the methodology as we get feedback. However, hopefully the analysis gives you new insights that inform your conversations on inclusion. And, if you have any questions or if you would like more detailed analysis, including for individual schools, we offer a paid-for service, so please get in touch.
Your analysis
Please get in touch if you would like support interpreting this analysis or click below to view the methodology.
View the methodology
Methodology
Data sources
We used the following school level data sources, in each case the latest published by the DfE at the time of analysis:
- Schools, pupils and characteristics for January 2024 – For the proportion of a school’s cohort on free school meals, English as an Additional Language (EAL), ethnic breakdowns, and SEND status.
- Exclusions for 2022/23 – For suspensions and permanent exclusions for all pupils
- Absence for 2023/24 – For absence data for all pupils. Since schools with higher numbers of disadvantaged pupils typically have higher levels of absence, we control for the proportion of pupils with free school meals in the absence analysis
- Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4 outcomes for disadvantaged pupils in 2024
- Destinations after Key Stage 4 for disadvantaged pupils finishing Key Stage 4 in 2022
Some schools were missing some indicators, mostly for one of the following reasons:
- Data suppression by the DfE due to small numbers – particularly for outcomes for disadvantaged pupils
- A school opening after or closing before a particular data point
If a school is missing too much data, they are excluded from the analysis. In other cases, they are excluded from a single measure due to a specific data gap.
Local representation score
To calculate whether a school was broadly reflective of the population of its local area that attends state schools, we compared each school to the average of its 5 closest schools of the same phase. A school that had higher than average proportions of pupils with SEND, free school meals and from ethnic minorities than its neighbouring schools receives a higher inclusion score. Clearly if other local schools are not reflective of their local population, this will affect the results, for example in areas where many pupils attend independents or special schools.
Calculating an inclusion score for the trust
The overall inclusion score was calculated using the following steps:
- Each school in a trust is ranked against all schools nationally for each indicator on the dashboard, with the most inclusive performance given a score of 100, and the lowest a score of 1
- Each school is then given an inclusion score for each of the four domains of data (local representation, exclusions, absence and academic outcomes), by averaging the scores for each indicator in the domain. These are averaged again to give an overall inclusion score, with local representation and exclusions weighted more highly since they are more in the control of schools and reflect inclusive practice.
- The scores for each school were averaged for all schools in a MAT at the point of the data collected, and this provides the overall MAT score out of 100.
In practice, because no school scores very high or very low on all indicators, the range of scores narrower than 1 to 100. In fact, when averaged to MAT level, the most inclusive MAT scored 77, and the least scored 30.
Our Analysis Services for MATs
We offer more detailed dashboards on inclusion, and on school improvement more generally, including school level breakdowns. You can view more information via the links below.
School Profiles
Our primary and secondary profiles provide a comprehensive summary of numerous aspects of a school, including attainment and progress, attendance, exclusions, workforce and finance, in a consistent visual format. They include visual cues to help you easily pull out key points, benchmark comparisons and trends over time.
Inclusion Index
We know that many schools work hard to be inclusive, but that this work is often not seen by traditional measures of school performance. Building on our popular local area Inclusion Index, we developed our school-level Inclusion Index. This draws together a range of indicators around inclusion, highlighting each school’s strengths and weaknesses.
If you would like further information on our school improvement products, analysis or research please view our school improvement page or contact us.
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Success Stories
Take a look at our case studies to learn more about some of our school improvement and SEND work.
