Pupil premium for poorer pupils

[longfingernails]

Both LDs and Tories had this in their manifestos. Labour didn't.

Ed Miliband would rather use the money to pay Child Benefit to the top 15% of earners.

Who are the "progressives"?

erm...schools already get extra money for children on free school meals , as brought in by labour.

pupil premuim? do you mean the money that was going to come from outside the school budget bbut which is now being taken from other areas of education...at a tune of 15% cuts . now don't call me sherlock but...

It's not quite as simple as that.

The Pupil Premium was a LibDem policy, also taken up pre-election, by the Conservatives (funding intended to come from abolition of Child Trust Funds).

Size of pupil premium, and how it fits into wider Budget has yet to be announced.

Labour announced it would also introduce a pupil premium in March 2010, but with no word on how of fund it.

I'm not sure which money for poorer pupils lego refers to. Labour did provide about £3billion, but it was to LEAs who had complete discretion about how much (if any) reached schools. It's not clear how this money was spent - and LEAs do vary.

The pupil premium would send the money directly to the school - no LEA input.

Whether either type of payment remains affordable, in the ruins of the national budget, is yet to be seen.

seriously, Ed Miliband is planning to oppose this in favour of reinstating the high-earner CB??? Is he going to carry on just blatantly running after a certain type of middle-class voter?

I was never sure what the pupil premium would actually be spent on or how it was to be calculated. See this article in the Guardian

Does it take a post code and make assumptions about lower numbers of words spoken in such households (see final para of article)?
Or that there will be a higher proportion of households where English is not spoken at home?
Or that poorer children have behavioural problems that disrupt the class requiring extra support teachers or even just security (e.g. to prevent bullying and knife crime)?

Or a complex mix of the above and the school gets to decide how to spend the money?

I'm prepared to buy the idea that poor white areas have even lower attainment in schools than areas with a high concentration of other ethnic groups. I'm just not sure how the money will be spent - classroom assistants, specialist equipment or training? Would we get more anomalies a 'poorer' school with 99% poor white boys gets more money than a school with a high percentage of kids who don't speak English or a higher than average number of children with physical disabilities? TBH I don't know how that is funded either.

Yes I read the bit that said schools to choose how to spend the pupil premium. This gives schools autonomy, but won't this just leave them "making up" what might work? Or having to do their own research? Is this cost effective? What we need is government policies guiding how money should be spent - otherwise this is just the government on the bandwagon of "professional discretion". Labour put money into the NHS, but it said "you have to reduce waiting times" - it didn't say "tell you what, why not do what you think best with this funding, and lets see if we somehow get short waiting times all around the country anyway...even though we didn't want to cramp your style by specifically asking for them" And now the Coalition is taking away waiting time targets, because somehow this is all going to come together without any direction from the centre. Yeah right.

And another thing - anyone can see that the pupil premium will be swallowed up in the yawning gap in schools funding which will start to happen next week with the CSR. "We need to make sure the shadow of this deficit doesn't blight the life chances of the future." Crocodile tears, Nick. If you cared about the disadvantaged in this country, you would not be in coalition with Cameron and Osborne.

"seriously, Ed Miliband is planning to oppose this in favour of reinstating the high-earner CB??? Is he going to carry on just blatantly running after a certain type of middle-class voter?"

Yes. We call this the "if we can't beat Tony's record in 1997, let's beat Michael's in 1983" strategy.

"Labour did provide about £3billion, but it was to LEAs who had complete discretion about how much (if any) reached schools. It's not clear how this money was spent - and LEAs do vary."

There was a thread on this a few months ago. And yes, the LEA's for many reasons (some of them good) will tend to spread this money across all their schools rather than pass it straight on to the school with the FSM child.

What the Coalition are talking about is a bit different:

They hope to provide an incentive for schools to take FSM pupils. Currently our schools are very socially polarised with some schools having much larger proportions of FSM pupils.

Even if this fails (and it might - IMO) at least those schools with large numbers of FSM pupils will have improved funding.

FSM - Free school meals. I think they are looking at other measures too.

Jackstarbright, if it's meant as an incentive, it won't make a difference to most schools unless a change in admissions criteria is imposed on them. Perhaps faith schools could think again about taking the most devout and just take the most in need (and the cash that goes with them).

If the money is not actually enough to fund extra teachers and fluctuates every year depending on numbers, schools may just end up using it on one-off things like carpets, school discos or pilgrimages to Lourdes for all I know.

We do need to know how it is being used and whether it is effective use of money. Particularly if they are taking away other services (like careers advice, after school clubs, etc.).

muminlondon - I pretty much agree with your first point, unless it prompts schools to actively go out and 'recruit' kids from poorer areas.

A recent Banardo's report suggested that poorer families often didn't apply for 'better' schools even when there was a chance their dc's would get in.

Your second point - is the main reason LEA's 'smooth' the allocation with the current system.

To work - the pupil premium does require schools to be financially savvy .

I used to believe that it was fair enough to social engineer schools and bus poorer children into middle class areas so that there would be more uniformity. But practically, middle class parents (I'm one of them, despite not having the money to send my child to a private school) are more informed and have more choices about where they live and will get scared off if the culture of the school changes.

Also, it's not healthy to have children living so far away from the school they have no connection or respect for the community in which the school is based. In the long run the school will suffer and if pupil numbers drop, the budget for the school drops and you can't employ 2/3 of a class teacher.

I admit I'm not sure how this will work. Money's too short for it to be wrongly targeted and wasted, however.

I do keep thinking similar things as the OP, I voted labour for years thinking it was the party to help the most disadvantaged in society, times are changing.

I think Labour did try to help the most disadvantaged (and succeeded to some degree). But their 'politics' can appear to get in their way.

The Tories and the LibDem's aren't afraid to focus money directly on a disadvantaged group. Labour are likely to get caught up in worrying about 'universality' and ensuring the middle class 'buy in' to a service - by giving them a piece of it.

I think we saw this with Surestart - which started as an innovative 'parent 'support'' service aimed at the disadvantaged, but was turned into a 'universal service' when Labour lost their nerve (IMO).

Good point jackstarbright, I am pleasantly surprised by some of this things this tory goverment is doing

If this is actually new money rather than a rebranding of existing funds, I'll be very surprised. I await with interest.

I live in Haringey in North London. This is considered an outer London borough for funding purposes, although it has all the problems of an inner London borough and is much poorer than Westminster, Camden, Islington etc that raise a lot of money through West End business rates. (there is a reason why there is not enough money for social workers ...)It also has to pay the teachers inner London rating, even though it only gets outer London funding. Haringey gets about £2000 less per child than Camden, or Islington. The pupil premium will make a big difference, as a considerable number of children are on free school meals.