Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Answer of 20 April 2026 to Question 126112 on Service Pupil Premium, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Service Pupil Premium in meeting the additional needs of pupils who are the children of service personnel.

The Service Pupil Premium (SPP) provides extra funding to help schools meet the pastoral and educational needs of children from service families. It is designed to help schools respond to the specific challenges associated with service life, including mobility, parental deployment and periods of family separation.

Schools have flexibility in how they use SPP funding, and there are many examples of it being used constructively to support service children. The department works closely with the Ministry of Defence to provide joint guidance for schools and share good practice. It is important that schools remain attentive to the potential impacts of service life on pupils’ educational experience and their wider wellbeing.

As a group, service children’s academic attainment is broadly comparable to that of non‑Service, non‑free school meals pupils, and their rates of progression to further education, employment or training after key stage 4 are also similar.