Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to support disadvantaged pupils over this academic year.

In financial year 2022-23, the National Funding Formula (NFF) will allocate £6.7 billion, 17% of all funding allocated by the NFF, through additional needs factors, including deprivation. That includes an increase of £225 million, or 6.7%, in the amount distributed through deprivation factors.

In addition, in financial year 2022-23 schools will receive a supplementary grant, which will provide significant further funding for deprivation: £85 for each primary pupil and £124 for each secondary pupil who have been eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years (FSM6). Schools’ individual allocations from the supplementary grant will be finalised in the coming months.

On top of this core funding, pupil premium funding rates are increasing by 2.7% in financial year 2022-23, to £1,385 for each FSM6 primary pupil and £985 for each FSM6 secondary pupil. This means that the per pupil funding rate will be the highest, in cash terms since the introduction of the pupil premium in 2011. Total pupil premium funding will increase to over £2.6 billion in 2022-23, from £2.5 billion this year.

We are also supporting disadvantaged pupils this academic year through our investment in education recovery. Overall direct investment announced for education recovery is almost £5 billion, including an additional £1.8 billion of funding announced in the recent Spending Review to support young people to catch up on education lost. Recovery premium funding will be based on the same disadvantage eligibility criteria as the pupil premium. During the 2021/22 academic year mainstream schools will attract a total of £145 for each eligible pupil.