The United Kingdom has a considerable attainment gap between students from the most and the least advantaged backgrounds. This gap opens up in the early years, with disadvantaged pupils already over four months behind their more advantaged peers by the time they start at primary school. The gap then continues to widen as students progress through education, and is over 19 months by the end of secondary school. The attainment gap impacts students across the spectrum of achievement and potential. This report looks specifically at pupils who are capable of high attainment, referred to here as 'highly able', but who are also known by a variety of other terms including 'more able', 'gifted and talented' and 'very able'. Very little is currently known as to how to best support and stretch the highly able, especially those who are from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. This report begins with a review of current research, focusing on students at secondary school level. The second section of this report then goes on to characterise high attainers in England who were in the top 10% nationally at KS2, examining who they are and in which schools they took their General Certificates of Secondary Education (GCSEs).