When the Liberal Democrats entered the Coalition Government in 2010 the introduction of a Pupil Premium was a key part of our agreement with the Conservatives.
It was a simple idea – give schools extra funding for each disadvantaged child they teach, and require that money to be spent in ways that improve those pupils’ life chances. It was a direct investment in fairness – helping to close the stubborn attainment gap between children from low-income families and their peers.
But a new report from the Centre for Social Justice shows that while £27 bn has been spent on the Pupil Premium it is not achieving as much as we would like – or was expected.
The gap in attainment at the end of primary school remains at 21 percentage points – barely changed in eight years. At GCSE level, the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers is now wider than at any point in the past decade. Only 45.6% of disadvantaged pupils secure a pass in both English and maths, compared to 73.7% of all others.
Even more worrying, six in ten schools saw worse results for disadvantaged pupils in 2023/24 than before the pandemic – while many improved outcomes for their better-off pupils. The Covid years hit vulnerable children hardest, but the recovery has not been even.
The Liberal Democrat vision behind the Pupil Premium was never just about more money. It was about targeted investment, accountability, and evidence-based spending. Yet the CSJ’s research shows that the system has drifted away from that vision. Schools often use the funds to plug general budget holes, and there is no consistent national tracking of how the money is spent or whether it works.
There are also problems with how eligibility is defined. The current model relies heavily on whether a child has been eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) in the past six years. That’s a blunt instrument in 2025. It misses children in long-term but hidden poverty, or those in unstable housing whose families fall just outside the income threshold. It can also include some whose circumstances have recently improved but still attract the same level of funding as those in acute need.
The CSJ report proposes a number of reforms to make the Pupil Premium deliver its aims more effectively. These include :
- Replace the binary FSM measure with a multi-dimensional index of disadvantage, using data on income, housing, and educational need.
- Merge the Pupil Premium with the deprivation element of the National Funding Formula for a clearer, more transparent system.
- Weight funding for children with a long history of disadvantage more heavily than for those with shorter-term need.
- Improve national oversight of how the money is spent, collecting consistent data and sharing best practice from high-performing schools.
The Report looks at some schools which buck the national trend, achieving above-average results for disadvantaged pupils. They tend to combine high-quality teaching, targeted small-group tuition, and wider support for pupils’ wellbeing and aspirations. These examples prove the Pupil Premium can still work – when it is properly focused and well-led.
We should be making the case loudly that our flagship achievement in Government needs to be evaluated and strengthened not allowed to stagnate.
Education is the surest route to opportunity. The Pupil Premium was created to make that route fairer. Fifteen years on, the principle is as urgent as ever – but the delivery needs a reset. If we fail to act, we risk another decade in which the poorest children fall further behind. That would betray both the spirit of the policy and the future of the children it was designed to help.
* Simon McGrath is a Councillor in Wimbledon and is a member of the Federal Policy Committee and Federal Council.
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11 Comments
There is a vast literature on the factors that determine the different educational outcomes experienced by different socio economic groups. The consensus is clear. While material and “in school” factors play a part, cultural and subcultural factors in the family and broader social group are even more important and these ingrained values and attitudes are remarkably difficult to change in a generation. There is not enough space here to explore this topic in the depth it deserves, but it does seem that well intentioned politicians on the centre left suffer from a stubborn refusal to acknowledge a fundamental truth that is born out by decades of academic research, that throwing money at this problem will have a marginal effect at best.
Excellent article. This is the kind of issue and policy that we should be promoting more.
In particular, we need changes to stop schools using the money for general budgetary purposes, and instead use it for things like “combine high-quality teaching, targeted small-group tuition, and wider support for pupils’ wellbeing and aspirations.”
Thanks to Simon for raising this significant issue, which was indeed a great “win” from the coalition period. However, I feel that Chris Cory makes an important comment: if his points are correct, then some serious thinking is needed on how to move forward with the agreed policy intentions. On a minor point (and please excuse my ignorance) how does “free school meals for all in KS1” (also a coalition “win” I believe) count in the Pupil Premium calculation?
I would agree with all the CSJ proposals except for “Improve national oversight of how the money is spent”. Central government should not be interfering in the day to day running of schools. Part of the reasoning behind the pupil premium was that people on the ground have more idea about the specific problems of their pupils than local let alone national government. That principle still holds. Good data and sharing best practice are always a good thing. Centralism is part of the problem.
Given that the ‘pupil premium’ applied only to England – and not to Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland – it can’t really be described as a ‘great win’ for a UK coalition government.
The poverty-related attainment gap is related to poverty …not directly caused by poverty. In other words, it is very often the attitudes and outlook of parents that results in them being more likely to be in poverty, and the children of these parents are likely to be brought up with the same attitudes and outlooks. In the face of often anti-educational attitudes, merely spending extra money will never be enough to close the gap with pupils often brought up with different attitudes and outlooks. We need to close this gap if we ever hope to close the poverty-related attainment gap.
Excellent article 👏 thank you. Hope the Party is listening.
I find it noteworthy the CSJ report omitted one major reform: remove the need for parents to have to disclose to the school their financial and home situation.
From the time I was involved with primary education, getting parents to come forward and make the necessary disclosures, so that the school could claim the pupil premium was a big problem. Universal school meals (a good thing) broke the visible free school meal entitlement linkage and also benefited those children who were going through a temporary upheaval at home.
A pupil premium was also in the Conservative 2010 manifesto. I wonder how successful it was before 2017. I was surprised to read in the report that even with free school meals being given to all children where the household receives Universal Credit, the household needs a household income below £7,400 in England for the children to be eligible for pupil premium funding. The report also states, ‘High outcomes for disadvantaged pupils do not necessarily translate to narrower attainment gaps. Even in schools where disadvantaged pupils are achieving at national average levels or above, attainment gaps persist. They are present in two thirds of such primary schools; and 95 per cent of such secondary schools.’ This means only 4.8% of primary schools are reducing the attainment gap and only 0.6% of secondary schools are. For secondary school pupils this has been a failure for 11 years. The first recommendation should have been to increase the amount of money schools have per pupil, so there is no need for schools to use the pupil premium for general school expenditure.
What needs doing is linking the change in disadvantaged pupils’ performance with the money schools get. If they can see that they are rewarded for using their money usefully they will do more of it. Positive change must be rewarded.
@ Peter Hirst, “What needs doing is linking the change in disadvantaged pupils’ performance with the money schools get”.
Oh dear, Mr Hirst, you’re taking us back to the Revised Code of 1862 and the mechanistic days of Robert Lowe, “If it is not cheap it shall be efficient, if it is not efficient it will be cheap”.
I rather thought Liberalism had moved on a bit since those days, but apparently not.