Education, Skills & Learning

School classroom This section of the site provides information on Education, Skills and Learning in Somerset.

Key facts for Somerset:-

Somerset has 267 state-funded schools, including academies, special schools, free schools and pupil referral units (January 2018 school census)
69,786 pupils are in state-funded education and 8,317 in independent schools
There are four Further Education (FE) colleges and no universities.
In 2017, the proportion of five-year olds achieving a good level of development (GLD) at the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) was 71%, up from 69% in 2016.
59% of Key Stage 2 pupils achieved the Expected Standard in Reading, Writing and Mathematics in 2017, in line with the national average.
64% of Key Stage 4 students achieved GCSE standard passes (grade 9-4) in English and Mathematics in 2017, in line with the national average.
The January 2018 School Census identified 9,680 pupils with Special Educational Needs (SEN), representing 13.9% of all pupils.
As at March 2018, 83% of state schools were judged to be good or outstanding by Ofsted, slightly below the national average (86%).
The proportion of Somerset pupils going into Higher Education (HE) is consistently below the national average (41% of state-funded mainstream pupils in 2015/16, compared to 51% nationally). (DfE)
More than one in four (25.6%) of Somerset residents aged 16 or over have a Level 4 (degree or equivalent) qualification. This is slightly below the England and Wales average of 27.2% (2011 Census)

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