Background to the report
The Department for Education (DfE) has a strategic priority to
improve the attainment of disadvantaged children. It has
introduced a range of interventions, alongside its funding to
support all children, specifically to improve the attainment of
disadvantaged children.
These include:
- the pupil premium, which DfE describes as its flagship policy
- certain local areas receiving additional funding
- six interventions introduced within two years of schools
closing because of COVID-19
Scope of the report
This report examines whether DfE is achieving value for money
through its funding to support the attainment of disadvantaged
children in educational settings in England, from early years to
the end of key stage 4 (the end of compulsory schooling).
It assesses:
- whether DfE has a coherent approach to support the attainment
of disadvantaged children, and its progress against its
objectives
- how DfE understands the attainment of children and how it
evaluates what works to effectively allocate resources
- the accountability arrangements and support DfE provides
schools and early years providers to ensure value for money
Conclusions
Each year, DfE spends around £60 billion to support all children
across schools and early years settings. For 2023-24, this
included an estimated £9.2 billion focused on supporting
disadvantaged children and narrowing the attainment gap between
them and their peers, with half of this comprising disadvantage
elements of its core funding for schools.
Despite this investment, disadvantaged children performed less
well than their peers across all areas and school phases in
2022/23. The gap in children's attainment had been narrowing
before the COVID-19 pandemic, which then had a detrimental
impact. The gap continues to widen for key stage 4, which is when
children leave school, and, while the attainment gap for those
finishing primary school narrowed slightly in the past year, it
remains wider than it was a decade ago.
DfE has evidence to support some of its interventions and uses
this to help schools and early years providers to make decisions.
However, itdoes not yet understand the outcomes resulting from a
significant proportion of its expenditure on disadvantaged
children. It also does not have a fully integrated view of its
interventions, or milestones to assess progress and when more may
need to be done.
This, and the lack of sustained progress reducing the
disadvantage attainment gap since 2010/11, means that DfE cannot
demonstrate it is achieving value for money. To make progress,
and secure value for money, it should build more evidence of what
works, look strategically across its interventions and how it
allocates its funding, and work effectively across government to
address the wider factors to make progress on this complex issue.
