, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary,
responding to a survey from the National Association of
Headteachers on the impact of Government changes to the pupil
premium census, said:
“Ministers have failed to protect family finances from the
impacts of the pandemic, but as more children have become
eligible for extra funding to help them achieve at school, the
Government is changing the criteria and making it harder for
schools to support their pupils.
“Disadvantaged children are missing out on the Government’s
tutoring programme which was only reaching 1 in every 200
students last month, and Ministers are compounding this failure
with the risk that disadvantaged pupils will be left behind by
the Government’s failed response to this pandemic."
Ends
Notes to Editors
- Pupil premium is extra funding provided to schools in England
to help them improve the attainment of their disadvantaged
pupils. Traditionally pupil funding from 1st April is
calculated by a census of pupils taken in January that year.
- The Government has announced changes to this: “From April
2021, pupil premium allocations for mainstream and special
schools will be calculated based on the number of eligible pupils
recorded by schools in their census in October 2020.” Meaning
that schools will not receive pupil premium funding for any pupil
who became eligible between October 2020 and January 2021.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium/pupil-premium
- An NAHT survey with 1,316 responses found 62% of respondents
had 5 or more pupils who become eligible for pupil premium
between the October 2020 and January 2021 census.
- Currently, primary schools receive £1,345 for each child
eligible for pupil premium, so the lost funding for 5 pupils is
£6,725 – more than the £6,000 ‘catch-up’ funding allocated to
primary schools on average.
