Poor kids lag as far behind their classmates as ever despite £30 billion equality drive, says think tank

A £27 billion government programme designed to tackle the class attainment gap in schools has failed to achieve results, according to new research by a the Centre for Social Justice.
 
It has found that academic standards among children from poverty-stricken homes lag as far behind those of their better-off classmates as they did when the programme began.
 
The “pupil premium”, championed by former Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, was launched by David Cameron's coalition government in 2011.
 
So far it has spent £27 billion in mainstream state schools in England and Wales in a bid to narrow the attainment gap and raise the performance of the poorest pupils, typically those from families on state benefits or from care homes.
 
But the new research from the Centre for Social Justice shows that at every level – primary and secondary – the pupil premium has failed to have the desired effect. It also reveals that the post-Covid attainment gap has widened in around half of schools, compared to before the pandemic.
 
“Fourteen years on, the stark reality is that attainment gaps between disadvantaged pupils and their peers have barely narrowed. This raises serious questions about whether the policy – in its current form – remains fit for purpose"  says the CSJ report Unequal Returns – The case for reforming the Pupil Premium.
 
“Education is often described as the great equaliser. But for too many children in England, it has failed to deliver on that promise. Disadvantaged pupils continue to fall behind – with gaps emerging early, widening through school, and shaping long-term life chances.
 
“The COVID-19 pandemic intensified these inequalities – disproportionately affecting pupils from low-income and unstable households.
 
“At the same time, the landscape of disadvantage has shifted. Rising in-work poverty, changes to Universal Credit, and growing housing insecurity mean more children face barriers to learning that are not captured by traditional indicators.”
 
Key findings include:

• Both the primary school and secondary school GCSE attainment gap was wider in 2023/24 than 8 years ago in 2016/17
• Disadvantaged pupils' outcomes were worse, on average, in 6 in 10 schools in 2023/24 compared to before the pandemic.
• In around half of schools where outcomes for better-off pupils have improved since the pandemic, outcomes for disadvantaged pupils have, on average, declined.
• The money spent on reducing attainment gaps in mainstream schools could have funded 720 million hours of one-to-one tuition

 
The CSJ calls for a fundamental overhaul of the pupil premium programme in light of its failure over 14 years to narrow the attainment gap.

In the short term, it recommends a string of changes to the programme designed to make it more effective.
 
Its report is highly critical of what it calls the “binary nature” of the pupil premium. In the last academic year, schools got an extra amount of money (£1480 a year at primary level; £1050 at secondary) for every child on free school meals – in effect, those whose parents were on Universal Credit with an income of below £7,400.

Nearly 30 per cent of all school-children, over 2 million, qualify for the pupil premium.
 
The think-tank dismisses this as a crude way of defining disadvantage and says that other yardsticks, such as neighbourhood deprivation and family circumstances, should be factored into the equation and used to identify recipients.
 
“Narrowing the attainment gap continues to be an ambition that government should put front-and-centre when it comes to priorities in education.
 
“However, our analysis shows that Pupil Premium has proven itself not fit for purpose in its current iteration.
 
“It is fraught with many problems: its binary, income-based eligibility criteria neglects the increasing complexity of real-world disadvantage and, too often, the funding supports children experiencing temporary hardship whilst neglecting many who have suffered long-term disadvantage.”
 
The report also observes that the lack of requirements and accountability for how schools spend pupil premium make it impossible to ensure the funding is going to the children who need it most.
 
“Schools must publish strategies that outline how the funds will be used to improve the educational outcomes of disadvantaged pupils, which they must review and renew every year.

“However, evidence suggests that PP funding is in many cases not being directed towards addressing attainment gaps or being used consistently in line with evidence-based best practice.
 
“Rather than placing blame on schools or teachers, the aim should be to better equip and support them in making the most impactful decisions when it comes to the use of PP funds."

In a foreword to the report, Andy Cook, CSJ Chief Executive, said:
 
“With outcomes for the most disadvantaged pupils now so stark, the case for root-and-branch reform has never been stronger. In the short term, that means better data, stronger accountability, and earlier, smarter intervention.
 
“In the long term, it requires bold ambition – reimagining the Pupil Premium as a world-leading model for targeting the right support, in the right places, at the right time, for the right children.

“The Government is set to spend another £10 billion on the Pupil Premium this Parliament – money unlikely to shift the needle on outcomes for our poorest children if current trends continue. Unless we radically rethink how we support our most vulnerable pupils, we risk condemning another generation to fall behind before they've even had a chance to begin.”