Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to reduce the risk of schools in disadvantaged areas excluding pupils from Turing Scheme-funded excursions due to the cap on funding.

In the current academic year of the Turing Scheme, we applied a cap to the funding that schools could apply for. Schools could receive funding of up to £50,000 for a single application or, applying as a consortium, up to £50,000 per school to a maximum of £300,000. This will limit how many schools are required to replan their intended placements. Setting a limit means that we can offer schools more certainty that they can be awarded the funding they request, without concentrating the funding in the hands of too few schools.

An estimated 82% of school placements this year will be for students from a disadvantaged background. The proportion of students from a disadvantaged background in a school’s application is a key factor in deciding which applications are funded. More schools than ever before have applied for funding, with 485 applying compared to 333 last year.