Genuinely interested so please don't flame me...

[sausagesmakethebestfrieds]

So I was talking to a friend a while back and she was talking to me about the criteria for a particular school that she would like to get her son enrolled in come sept. Now I don't have kids so honestly I know nothing about this but friend was telling me that the first criteria (or at least on the criteria somewhere) it mentioned that children who's parents are in receipt of benefits are prioritised. Friend wasn't saying this in bad taste and I completely understand why such children would be entitled to free school meals etc but I never thought it affected entry to a school. Can anyone tell me why this is? Seems strange for a parent that has to go to a physical workplace who has a child living close by could be turned away when maybe another child who's parent has the time facilitate this better in the mornings gets a place. Honestly please don't flame me, I'm just curious

Yes, I was going to say the same. This is the first criteria for our nursery school:

1. Children from socially disadvantaged circumstances in their final pre-school year who were born:

... Note: Children from ‘socially disadvantaged circumstances’ means a child whose parent has an entitlement to (i) Income Support, or (ii) Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, or (iii) Income related Employment and Support Allowance, or (iv) Universal Credit. When parents apply for places for their child on this basis they must provide Benefit Verification to confirm that they have an entitlement. The application procedure for Pre-School will outline how Benefit Verification can be submitted.

As PP have said it PP students. This applies to student whose parent are in receipt of certain benefits as outlined above. The school
Revives an extra sum of money per student to invest further in their education such as trips or in the wider school context such as support staff and intervention staff.

PP students typically perform less well than other students and it is an indicator of social deprivation. Students from these backgrounds often have parents with low engagement and low aspirations with school and who often attend less well performing school. By giving students from deprived backgrounds access to the best schools there is hope that the trend of multigenerational families who are out of work and relying solely on benefits and all the other problems associated with this (health, crime, poor living conditions), will eventually be bucked.

As a teacher, the performance of PP students compared to their peers has been worse in my previous four schools and has always been a development target. Some of these schools had high % of PP students and some Low.

If this didn't happen the school would become and enclave of state-funded middle class privilege. which in fairness it probably still will be.