Funding for disadvantaged pupils inquiry
Closed
What the inquiry looked at
“Report: Funding for disadvantaged pupils Report: Funding for disadvantaged pupils (PDF 205KB) The Department for Education aims to improve the quality of education for all. It also aims to raise disadvantaged pupils’ attainment and reduce the gap between them and others. In 2011, the Department announced new funding for schools, the Pupil Premium, which specifically aims to improve outcomes for disadvantaged children. Worth £2.5 billion in 2014-15, the Pupil Premium is distributed to schools by the Department according to their number of disadvantaged pupils between the ages of 5 and 16. The Department expects schools to use the funding to support disadvantaged pupils to achieve more but schools can decide how to spend it. The attainment gap between disadvantaged and other pupils narrowed by 4.7 percentage points in primary schools and 1.6 percentage points in secondary schools between 2011 and 2014, but no clear trend has been established and the gap remains wide. The National Audit Office report raised concerns regarding the identification of disadvantaged pupils, particularly with the introduction of Universal Infant Free School Meals and Universal Credit. Ofsted has expressed concern about provision for disadvantaged pupils in 8% of primary schools and 21% of secondary schools it inspected between September and December 2014. There are particular risks around some of the approaches schools most commonly use. The NAO estimates that schools have spent an extra £430 million on teaching assistants since the introduction of the Pupil Premium; a high-cost approach, while other low-cost interventions are used too infrequently, with just 25% using peer-to-peer learning. This inquiry examines the current accountability and intervention mechanisms and how the pupil premium is improving disadvantaged pupils’ attainment and achieving other impacts.”
The committee's words, from the inquiry page on parliament.uk ↗.
What it found
Since the introduction of the Pupil Premium in 2011, there is some evidence that the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers has started to narrow. Head teachers have increased their focus on tackling this obdurate issue and there are many examples of schools using the Pupil Premium on interventions that work. The work of the Education Endowment Foundation has also been important in developing the evidence base for what works best, and so helping schools to choose the best interventions for their own circumstances. However, the Department for Education needs to be better at supporting schools to share and use best practice more consistently so that more schools use the Pupil Premium effectively. In addition, there remain inequalities in the core funding received by schools with very similar levels of disadvantage. As the impact of the Pupil Premium will take a long time to be fully realised, the Department needs to do more to demonstrate its emerging benefits in the meantime. We also urge the Department to carry out an early review of the effectiveness of the Early Years Pupil Premium.
What the government said
No government response is linked to this report.
How the inquiry ran
Each dot is a dated item listed on this page, from the inquiry's opening on 9 July 2015 to its close on 12 May 2016.
- Oral evidence 21 Jul 2015
- Report 9 Oct 2015
What it recommended
The committee's recommendations are not listed here yet. Read them in 3rd Report - Funding for disadvantaged pupils ↗ on parliament.uk.
Evidence
Oral evidence sessions 1
- 21 Jul 2015No witnesses recordedparliament.uk ↗