Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to invest in education in low performing areas.

Overall, core schools funding is increasing by £4 billion in the 2022/23 academic year, a 7% increase in cash terms per pupil from 2021/22. This includes an increase in mainstream school funding for 5-16 year olds of £2.5 billion, which is equivalent to an average 5.8% cash increase, or an average of £300 per pupil.

The low prior attainment factor in the national funding formula (NFF) supports low attainment areas by providing more funding for schools whose pupils are likely to need more help to catch up with their peers. We have allocated 6.7% of the total NFF to low prior attainment in 2022/23.

As the government’s Levelling Up White Paper and recent Schools White Paper outline, the government is committed to levelling up education standards and increasing capacity in the parts of the country that need this most. The first part of this journey will see investment in 55 Education Investment Areas. These are in the places where outcomes in literacy and numeracy are the poorest and there is the most urgent need for improvement. In these areas we will focus our support for schools not making necessary improvement and trust growth, as well as offering the Levelling Up premium, worth up to £3,000, to eligible teachers in disadvantaged schools and supporting improved digital connectivity through the Connect the Classroom programme.

The department will also be making additional intensive investment in a subset of 24 Priority Education Investment Areas, to address entrenched underperformance, including in literacy and numeracy, in areas with some of the highest rates of disadvantage in the country. This includes around £40 million of additional funding, which will be provided for bespoke interventions to address local needs, such as addressing high absence rates.