New education funding for low income families

The Department for Education (DfE) announced yesterday that schools, nurseries and child-minders will be given up to £300 for every 3- and 4- year old pupil from a low income family.

This new funding is to be called “Early Years Pupil Premium” and is designed to support children from low income families to help to reduce the attainment gap that exists. It follows a consultation that the DfE launched in June 2014. The response to the consultation was fairly small; amounting to a total of 461 responses, including organisations and individuals. Interestingly, only 120 local authorities responded to the consultation. This amounts to about 25% of all local authorities in England.

The consultation and DfE reports can be found here.

Whilst this drive seems like a step forward, it is nothing new. The Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF), as it was before becoming the DfE, published guidance in 2009 entitled Breaking the link between disadvantage and low attainment – Everyone’s Business. This can be found here.

The DCSF report itself referred to research that had been conducted in 2003 discussing the link between low-income and lower achievement for pupils. This, much longer document, sought to encourage schools and local authorities to recognise and manage the attainment gap that had developed.

The evidence suggests that low income can have as direct a link to low attainment as special educational needs (SEN). Parents, schools and professionals will all be aware of the huge changes that have taken place in SEN laws recently.  With the SEN law in disarray and many commentators considering that the changes have not met their objectives, it is hoped that this initiative will be effective.

It seems, therefore, that whilst this new measure may be promising, it is not in response to new research or awareness. It is also unclear how the money will be administered and how £300 will effectively prevent an attainment gap developing.  This seems to be a perennial issue which will no doubt be raised again in the near future.