Exploring the long-term effects of secondary school type

Your generation lived through the education changes of the 1960s, when comprehensive schools began to replace many grammar and secondary modern schools across England and Wales.

Using information from NCDS, researchers have found that attending a selective school such as a grammar—which required passing the 11-plus test—or secondary modern rather than comprehensive had no long-term impact on your health and wellbeing, with only a few exceptions.

What we asked you

When you were growing up, you and your parents shared a range of information about your lives, including about your family background, the type of school you went to, and whether you planned to stay on at school beyond the minimum school-leaving age.

You also completed several different tasks to measure numeracy, reading and other skills at ages seven, 11 and 16.

Throughout your adult lives, you’ve told us about your physical and mental health, your feelings of wellbeing and your work lives.

The type of schools you attended

You went to school during a period of transition from the selective system based on ability, with grammar and secondary modern schools, to the new non-selective system with mixed ability comprehensive schools. Where you lived at the time would have had a part in which type of school you went to.

Nearly half of you went to a comprehensive school, just over a fifth of you went to a secondary modern and 10% of you attended a grammar. The remaining 20% of you went to non-local authority schools, such as academies or technical schools.

What the researchers found

A team of researchers from the UK and Spain analysed the information from NCDS to look at whether the type of secondary school you attended had any bearing on different aspects of your lives later on. They found that, on the whole, the type of school you attended had no long-term effects, with a couple of exceptions.

On average, if you went to grammar school, you were more likely to say you would stay on at school after 16 compared to those of similar ability who went to a comprehensive. This could then translate into better education, qualifications, employment prospects and wages later in life.

However, when it came to life satisfaction as adults, former comprehensive pupils scored highest, and former grammar school pupils the lowest.

The researchers found that children’s abilities, recorded in their last year of primary school, had a more significant impact on their life outcomes as adults than the type of school they went to.

Why this research matters

Understanding how your start in life affects your long-term prospects is crucial. These findings from NCDS suggest that focusing on children’s education in their early years could help them have better health and wellbeing as adults.

The researchers also suggest that gaining skills after school such as through university or careers can also improve people’s outcomes.

Read the full research paper

Tracking pupils into adulthood: Selective schools and long-term human capital by Chiara Pastore, Nigel Rice and Andrew M. Jones was published in Recent Developments in Health Econometrics in 2024