To illustrate the magnitude of socio-economic differences in drop out, a pupil from a professional background is 1.3 percentage points less likely to drop out than a student from a managerial/senior official background. Equally a pupil whose parents are in sales and customer service occupations is around 3 percentage points more likely to drop out than a student from a managerial/senior official background. In the context of low overall drop our rates (6% in our sample), these socio-economic differences are large.