Education: Disadvantaged

(asked on 24th June 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to target resources at tackling the attainment gap to help ensure that children and young people progress their learning.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 2nd July 2021

The Department is aware that the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak has been felt most significantly by disadvantaged children and young people. We have already announced over £3 billion to support Education Recovery, including £1 billion to support up to six million, 15 hour tutoring courses for disadvantaged school children; a £302 million Recovery Premium, weighted so the schools with more disadvantaged pupils receive more funding and £22 million to scale up proven approaches to reduce the attainment gap.

As part of the Department’s long standing commitment to addressing this issue, we already target funding towards schools serving disadvantaged pupils as part of the National Funding Formula. The Pupil Premium targets further funding to disadvantaged pupils and plays a crucial role in the work of schools to progress pupils' education. Through this, we are providing over £2.5 billion in the 2021/22 financial year.

Recognising the benefits of place based interventions, our Opportunity Areas programme brings together local partners to break down entrenched problems of educational achievement, to target additional resources to particular schools and particular cohorts of children and young people.

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