Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what consideration she has given to allowing military parents more choice in how their child's Pupil Service Premium is spent.

The Service Pupil Premium (SPP) is additional funding for state-funded schools in England with children and young people of service families. It will be paid at a rate of £360 per eligible pupil in the 2026/27 financial year.

Schools can tailor their SPP expenditure to meet the specific pastoral and academic needs of individual service children and help mitigate the impact of matters such as family mobility, separation, or parental deployment. It is the responsibility of each school to decide how to use their SPP funding and to communicate this with parents.

Schools are encouraged to consider best practice in the use of SPP funding, set out here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-service-pupil-premium/service-pupil-premium-examples-of-best-practice

Guidance for schools, academy trusts and local authorities on supporting service pupils is published jointly by the department and the Ministry Of Defence here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/service-pupils-in-schools-non-statutory-guidance/service-pupils-in-schools-non-statutory-guidance.

This recommends that schools consider recording their use of SPP funding as part of their mandatory pupil premium statement, unless they have reason to believe this will identify individual pupils. An optional field in the template is provided for this purpose.