To put it plainly, based on the reading of two prominent academics in England, the sample from English schools is light on the percentage of pupils with special needs. This echoes the problems of representativeness in the English sample in 2022 (more below) when the results were ‘asterisked’ with a serious warning after almost being fully excluded. There is no history of such gaming or bias in the other 3 UK nations.
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The above from the Times Education Supplement‘s analysis of the Pisa test results today is being used attack the Scottish education system and of course the SNP Government.
The English results are subject to serious concerns.
Second, following on from the critiques of Professor Frijters retired, of LSE 2016-2019, and of John Jerrim Professor of Education and Social Statistics at UCL, above, the 2025 PISA sample for England is being claimed to be more representative than in several previous cycles (especially 2022).
A degree of scepticism is reasonable.
England appears to have met the OECD’s official participation thresholds this time: a final weighted school response rate of 90% (the standard is 85%) and a pupil response rate of 83% (the standard is 80%). The original school sample was 205 schools; after replacements the final sample was 183 schools and 5,619 pupils. England has a long record of weak PISA response rates and a tilt toward more willing, often higher-attaining, schools. A sudden jump from failing the OECD standards in 2022 to meeting them in 2025 does not, by itself, prove the sample is now clean.
A government that wants a good PISA story, plus a contractor (Pearson) whose job is to get schools over the line suggests we cannot rule out softer selection with more schools that are better organised, more compliant, or under more official encouragement taking part. https://www.pearson.com/uk/web/pisa25/en/for-school-coordinators/next-steps.html
So, the remaining exclusion rate, pupil non-response among disadvantaged and SEN pupils, and England’s history of gaming and low take-up are enough to treat the 2025 scores as a bit high relative to the true population
Third, and this is where things get political, John Jerrim (UCL) noted that England’s advantage over the rest of the UK is especially at the top of the distribution. England is not 25 PISA points ahead of Scotland at every ability level. A large part of the mean gap comes from England’s high attainers doing better than Scotland’s high attainers. The middle and the bottom are closer. https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/pisa-2025-scores-revealed-england-uk-ranking
Put simply, this means that the apparently better scores in English schools is mostly amongst the top fifth.
Some more reliable research:
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