Schools: Pupil Premium

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how the pupil premium will be monitored to ensure that it benefits individual children.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, we want to help schools to narrow attainment gaps. One way of doing that is through the pupil premium, which represents additional funding rising to £900 per pupil next year for children on free school meals. From this September, schools have to publish details of how they use their premium. My department publishes in the school performances tables information about disadvantaged pupils’ achievement. Ofsted has a closer focus on how the premium is used and on how it benefits pupils.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

I thank the Minister for that reply. I am sure he is aware that a recent Ofsted report states that very few teacher leaders think that the pupil premium has changed the way in which they support disadvantaged pupils. I understand from him that Ofsted will in future be asked to comment specifically on the use of the pupil premium. What effective measures will be chosen to assess those reports?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

The principle that we are adopting generally in introducing the pupil premium is to leave discretion on how it is spent as much as possible to individual heads because they will know the circumstances of the children for whom they are responsible. However, the noble Baroness is right that those approaches that are working well—which we will discover through the publication online of details of how schools have done, through inspections by Ofsted and through spreading good practice through the education endowment fund—should be spread as widely as possible, with lessons being learnt from them.