Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 13 December 2017 to Question 117570, what steps her Department plans to take to increase social mobility in areas of Good and Outstanding Ofsted rated schools.

Social mobility is the Department for Education’s priority and we recently published an action plan for driving social mobility through education (Unlocking Talent, Fulfilling Potential, which can be found at: http://qna.files.parliament.uk/ws-attachments/806404/original/Social%20Mobility%20Action%20Plan.pdf). This plan sets out how we will tackle barriers to opportunity at every life stage and includes an ambition to close the attainment gap between disadvantaged students and their wealthier peers, no matter what school they attend, while raising standards for all. We will continue to support disadvantaged pupils in all schools in a range of ways.

The pupil premium grant provides schools with additional money to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils of all abilities. All state–maintained schools, including those that are judged Good and Outstanding, receive the pupil premium based on the number of eligible pupils on roll. Schools receive £1,320 for primary-aged pupils and £935 for secondary-aged pupils who have been registered for free school meals at any point in the last six years. The 2015 Spending Review guaranteed these per-pupil rates until 2020. The attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers has narrowed since we introduced the Pupil Premium – now worth around £2.5 billion per year – in 2011.

Schools now have a broad range of evidence to draw on to support effective spending of the pupil premium, and we will continue to work with the Education Endowment Foundation to support this, including through a new approach to specialist national leader of education led pupil premium reviews.

We will also introduce a new £23 million Future Talent Programme to trial approaches and present clear recommendations on what works to support the most able disadvantaged children. And, given that disadvantaged pupils of all abilities are less likely to be entered for the core English Baccalaureate (EBacc) subjects that can open up opportunity, we will introduce targeted support for schools to encourage take-up and increase the supply of EBacc subject teachers, in line with our ambition of 75% EBacc take-up by 2022 and 90% by 2025.