FAQ: How does the DfE define Disadvantaged students? (Admin)

The DfE defines ‘Disadvantaged’ students as those who are:

“…known to be eligible for FSM in the previous six years... or are looked after children for more than 6 months during the year.” From 2015, they also include “children who were looked after for at least one day during the year, or who have ceased to be looked after by a local authority in England and Wales because of adoption, a special guardianship order, a child arrangements order or a residence order”.

Depending on the students at your school, this means that there could be cases where either FSM Ever6 or Pupil Premium filters do not reflect your Disadvantaged students accurately and you would need to create a separate Disadvantaged filter.

The table on the following page displays the criteria for Disadvantaged, FSM Ever 6, and Pupil Premium students, with text in red italics highlighting differences between the specified filter and Disadvantaged.

There may be cases where either FSM Ever 6 or Pupil Premium filters reflect your Disadvantaged students accurately. For example, FSM Ever 6 may be suitable if you have no Looked After students in the cohort, or Pupil Premium may be suitable if you have no Armed Forces students in the cohort. As such, we’d recommend double checking the criteria as stated above.

If these filters are not suitable for your cohort, you will need to set up a separate Disadvantaged filter in your school, then import a student data file containing this information in order to map this on the Key Filter Mapping page as appropriate. Please see our article here for information on how to do this -

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