Ahead of the 20th October spending review and to protect politically sensitive parts of the total education budget, the government has responded to accusations of unfairness over their planned child benefit cuts by announcing a £7 billion Pupil Premium. This will be allocated over the same period as the spending review and aims to improve the educational prospects of the poorest children, supporting them up from the socially critical 2 years of age when they risk future exclusion and to the university stage. The total schools budget which normally represents some 50% of the total spend on education will also not be cut.
This pupil premium will target e.g. schools with the highest proportion of free school meals and, therefore, serving the most disadvantaged catchment areas. How the money is to be spent will be left to the discretion of individual school head teachers. Longer term savings in welfare spending are anticipated from enabling such disadvantaged children to catch up and maintain progress with their peers through extra tuition and other early support, thereby increasing their aspiration and hopefully reducing their otherwise over-reliance on state benefits in the future. Of course, with the total schools budget still limited by the restrictions on government spending, this could mean that schools in more affluent areas will get less.
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