£14,815,000 for Schools in Bristol

Find out how much the Pupil Premium is worth in area or school by clicking here.

David Laws, Minister of State (Schools) at the Department of Education has today announced another step forward in the funding of the Liberal Democrat's Pupil Premium which channels extra funding to schools based on the number of pupils claiming (or having claimed in the past 5 years) free school meals.

The premium for 2013/14 will be £900 per pupil (worth £1.875bn according to this briefing from the Department for Education - as opposed to the figure on the above link - although I believe the latter may include the cost of other related schemes). This is an increase from £623 in 2012/13 and a step towards a target of channelling £2.5bn in this way.

The beauty of the Pupil Premium is that it is an additional sum for the school to use in the way they best see fit. There is no central dictation of how to spend the funds so they can be used for the general good of all the pupils or in a more targeted way. Outcomes are monitored by Ofsted, though, so any spending should have a measurable result.

It's another example of a thoroughly progressive measure being pushed from the Liberal Democrat Manifesto, through the coalition agreement and into practice by Lib Dems in Government. In hard and austere times, we are - contrary to the popular narrative - working to introduce fairness into the system. We can't always be successful but we can make our successes count. 

Andrew