Schools: Pupil Premium

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

The principle that we are adopting generally in introducing the pupil premium is to leave discretion on how it is spent as much as possible to individual heads because they will know the circumstances of the children for whom they are responsible. However, the noble Baroness is right that those approaches that are working well—which we will discover through the publication online of details of how schools have done, through inspections by Ofsted and through spreading good practice through the education endowment fund—should be spread as widely as possible, with lessons being learnt from them.

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that, according to an Ofsted survey of, I think, 300 schools, 50% were using the money effectively and were seeing real changes. How can we ensure that the other 50% are using the money, which we have heard is going up next year, in such an effective way?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My answer makes a similar point. It is important that we learn lessons from the ones that are spending it effectively. We will do that through the work of the Education Endowment Foundation, which was set up specifically to spread good practice and help other schools learn the most effective ways of tackling disadvantage. It is early days, but as more information is published, the fact that from this September schools are having to account for how they have spent their money and what they have spent it on, and demonstrate a linkage between that money and results, will help us achieve the goal of my noble friend Lord Storey.