Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve literacy rates among children qualifying for pupil premium and free school meals in primary schools.

The Government is committed to continuing to raise literacy standards to ensure that all children, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds, can read fluently and with understanding. The first five years of a child’s life provide a critical opportunity to close development gaps between disadvantaged children and their peers, particularly in reception year.

In 2018, the Department launched the English Hubs Programme to improve the teaching of reading, with a focus on phonics, early language development and reading for pleasure. Since its launch, the Department has invested over £60 million in this programme to improve the teaching of reading. The English Hubs are currently delivering intensive support to over 1,000 partner schools, reaching approximately 50,000 pupils in Reception and Year 1.

These schools contain an above average proportion of Free School Meal pupils, who are over represented in the programme, along with those schools underperforming in phonics.

In 2022 the Department also launched the Accelerator Fund for English as part of the Government’s education recovery package. This was initially a £4 million fund targeted at 60 Local Authority districts identified as most in need of specialist intervention. Over 450 schools in those areas have been provided with funding to date to adopt a Department-validated phonics scheme and the training to implement this successfully. We have expanded the validated phonics scheme in 2023, committing £8.7 million further funding to roll it out nationally to up to 680 additional schools, of which £4.9 million will be from the Accelerator Fund.

In addition to this, the Pupil Premium grant offers direct funding to schools to provide additional support to improve disadvantaged pupils’ outcomes. Pupil Premium rates will increase by 5% for 2023/24, a £180 million increase from 2022/23, taking total Pupil Premium funding to £2.9 billion.

The Department is determined to continue to support pupils and schools in their recovery from the impact of the pandemic and have a comprehensive package of support in place. The Department’s £5 billion multi year recovery plan, including the Recovery Premium and the National Tutoring Programme, will support pupils to catch up, including the most disadvantaged.