Nearly half of 11-year-olds among some minority ethnic groups in the UK are receiving private tuition outside of school, research has revealed.

Children categorised as from Chinese, black or Indian backgrounds are more than twice as likely to be tutored as their white peers. These three minority ethnic groups also seem to be doing more homework, on average, than white children.

The findings come as part of a major research project which is being presented at BERA today. It will raise questions about what is driving the impressive recent record of pupils from some minority ethnic groups in school league tables: what happens in school or what takes place outside of it.

Researchers from Newcastle University and from NatCen Social Research, the social research institute, have been studying how a cohort of 19,000 pupils, all born in 2000-1, spend their lives outside of school. For the full details, please see here.