Mary Macleod MP supports Coalition Government’s new Pupil Premium

Mary Macleod, the local Member of Parliament, has welcomed new figures which show that disadvantaged children in the Brentford & Isleworth constituency are set to receive £1.4 million this year under the Coalition government’s new ‘pupil premium’.

The pupil premium is a new policy promised by both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats before the general election last year. It is an extra lump sum of cash which follows every disadvantaged child and is received by schools, allowing them to provide additional support such as one-to-one tuition and extra pastoral care.

The Government has announced that in the year from April 2011, the pupil premium will be worth £430 for every pupil on Free School Meals, £430 for every looked-after child, and £200 for every child who has a parent in the armed services. This means that in the Brentford & Isleworth constituency this year:

• 3,230 children overall will benefit from an extra £1,389,000.

Mary said:
“This is good news for children in our area. The gap between the academic performance of children from deprived backgrounds and their peers is too wide and has been ignored for too long.
“In the last month, reports estimate that a third of children in Brentford are living in poverty. The pupil premium will tackle this disparity head on, providing targeted funding for those who need it most. This could mean extra one-to-one tuition or more pastoral support. 
“In these tough times, the pupil premium will deliver a massive boost to the education of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children locally."

The pupil premium was one of the flagship policies for schools in the Conservative manifesto at the last election (Conservative Party, Election Manifesto 2010, p. 53).

On 13 December, Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove announced details of the pupil premium. The deprivation pupil premium will be allocated according to the number of pupils on Free School Meals and will be worth £430 in 2010-11. £430 will also be allocated for looked-after children. £200 will be allocated for service children.

The total allocated to the pupil premium is set to rise fourfold from £625 million in 2011-12 to £2.5 billion by 2014-15. This leaves scope for much more support in future years (DfE, Written Ministerial Statement, 13 December 2010, link).

Local Figures

The table below shows how many children in each constituency will benefit from the pupil premium and how much it will be worth.

Note: the figures are based on the January 2010 schools census. Although final pupil premium allocations for 2011-12 will be based on the more up-to-date January 2011 schools census, the figures below are indicative of how much support will be provided.

Source: Hansard, 18 March 2011, Col. 706W; House of Commons Library, Deposited Paper DEP2011-0488, 18 March 2011, link.