Last Updated on October 28, 2026 by Karl Thompson
Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) pupils have the lowest average educational achievement of any ethnic group in England. In the government’s statistics they appear as two groups: ‘Gypsy/Roma’ and ‘Irish Traveller’ (Travellers of Irish heritage). This post sets out the figures and the main explanations. It’s part of the sociology of education module, examined on AQA Paper 1 (7192/1).
The statistics
| Gypsy/Roma | Irish Traveller | White British | All pupils | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average Attainment 8 score at GCSE (2022/23) | 20.3 | 26.8 | 44.9 | 46.3 |
| Overall absence rate (2022/23) | 18.2% | 22.9% | 7.5% | 7.4% |
| Persistently absent: missing 10% or more of sessions (2022/23) | 64.9% | 72.0% | 20.9% | 21.2% |
| Permanent exclusions per 100 pupils (2022/23) | 0.43 | 0.35 | 0.13 | 0.11 |
England, state-funded schools. Sources: Ethnicity facts and figures, GCSE results (Attainment 8), published 7 November 2024; Absence from school, published 4 December 2024; Permanent exclusions, published 11 December 2024. The Irish Traveller figures are based on small numbers of pupils and are less reliable. GRT families may also choose not to record their ethnicity, so these groups are probably under-counted.
So Gypsy/Roma pupils’ average GCSE score is less than half the national average, and around two-thirds of Gypsy/Roma pupils and almost three-quarters of Irish Traveller pupils are persistently absent from school.
Why do GRT pupils have such low achievement?
The most obvious explanation is attendance: pupils who miss a large part of their schooling are very likely to get lower results. When a parliamentary committee took evidence on GRT pupils’ education in 2018, experts said that poor attendance was the main reason for their poor outcomes.
But that raises the question of why attendance is so low. Sean Harford, then Ofsted’s national director for education, told the committee there was ‘a push and a pull factor’: some schools make GRT children feel unwelcome, while some families keep their children away from school. Professor Kalwant Bhopal, of the University of Birmingham, pointed to several reasons, which fall on both sides of the home/school divide.
Not feeling included in the school curriculum
Bhopal told the committee that the curriculum “does not represent adequately Gypsy, Roma and Traveller histories”. In other words, GRT pupils may experience the curriculum as ethnocentric, which sends the message that school isn’t really for them.
Racism and discrimination
Bhopal said GRT families and children face heavy discrimination in schools, from other pupils and from teachers. When GRT children report racism, she said, staff often don’t recognise it as racism, because ‘it’s not seen as racism because they’re white groups’. Harford, for Ofsted, also acknowledged that ‘there is bullying and racism’.
Cuts to Traveller education services
Bhopal also blamed cuts to local authority Traveller education services, which had played an important role in supporting GRT families and acting as advocates for them with schools.
Home and family factors
Some families keep their children away from school, particularly at secondary age. This is sometimes explained by cultural factors, such as a preference for children learning work and family roles at home, or concerns about the content of some lessons. Be careful here, though: explanations based on GRT culture can easily slide into stereotyping, and GRT families are as varied as any other group. The parliamentary evidence suggests that what happens in schools, such as racism and feeling unwelcome, also affects whether families send their children.
Evaluation
- Home or school? GRT pupils show how hard it is to separate the two. Low attendance looks like a home factor, but the evidence suggests that racism and an unwelcoming curriculum push some families away from school.
- The figures are uncertain. These are small groups, and many GRT families may not identify themselves to schools, so the statistics may not be fully representative.
- A neglected group. Most research on ethnicity and education focuses on Black Caribbean, Chinese and South Asian pupils, even though GRT pupils have the lowest achievement and the highest exclusion and absence rates of any group.
GRT pupils in the exam
GRT pupils are useful in an essay on ethnic differences in achievement (AQA June 2019, Q04: see the full essay) as evidence that the debate isn’t only about Black and Asian pupils, and that in-school factors such as racism and the curriculum may matter even for a white minority group.
Sociology of Education Revision Bundle
If you like this sort of thing, then you might like my sociology of education revision notes bundle, written by Karl Thompson, who taught A-level sociology for eighteen years and spent twelve as an AQA examiner, marking all three papers on the current specification.
Signposting
Related posts: ethnicity and education statistics, are schools institutionally racist? and why do some children get excluded from school?
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Sources
- Ethnicity facts and figures: GCSE results (Attainment 8), Absence from school and Permanent exclusions, 2022 to 2023.
- House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee, oral evidence on Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities’ educational inequalities, 13 September 2018, as reported by Children and Young People Now (13 September 2018) and the University of Birmingham (19 September 2018).