Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department plans to take to help schools support children in disadvantaged circumstances in the North of England.

Closing the attainment gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils has been a Departmental priority underpinning all the Department’s education reforms since 2010. The attainment gap narrowed by 9% at secondary school level and by 13% at primary school level between 2011 and 2019.

For over a decade, the Department has consistently taken a range of steps to give priority support and deliver programmes that help disadvantaged pupils, including improving the quality of teaching and curriculum resources, strengthening the school system, and providing targeted support where needed. The Department knows that disadvantaged children have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The widened gap is not acceptable, and the Department is working to reduce this.

At a national level, the Department delivers a number of core policies to support disadvantaged pupils, such as free school meals (FSM) that support 1.9 million children, the Holiday Activities and Food Programme where the Department is investing over £200 million a year for the next 2 years and support for 2,500 breakfast clubs and family hubs. Additionally, the Department is also ensuring better targeting of deprivation factors through the National Funding Formula (over 9% of all funding), as well as record amounts of pupil premium funding, £2.6 billion in the 2022/23 financial year and £2.9 billion in 2023/24.

The National Tutoring Programme (NTP) funds schools based on rates of disadvantage. Since the launch of the NTP in November 2020, more than £1 billion has been made available to support tutoring. From November 2020 to the 2023/24 academic year nearly 4 million tutoring courses have been started (up to July 2023). By 2024, the Department will have embedded tutoring across schools in England. The Department expects tutoring to continue to be a staple offer from schools, with schools using their core budgets, including the Pupil Premium, to fund targeted support for those pupils who will benefit.

At a regional level, the Department has identified 55 Education Investment Areas (EIAs) with the lowest attainment outcomes, 27 of which are in the North. In these areas, the Department is providing £86 million for Trust Capacity funding, up to £150 million for Connect the Classroom, and extra funding for Levelling Up Premium retention payments and to support schools with two or more Requires Improvement inspection reports.

Furthermore, 24 EIAs have been identified as Priority Education Investment Areas, 13 of which are in the North. These areas face low attainment at Key Stage 2 and entrenched disadvantage. They receive additional investment including £42 million of Local Needs Funding, £86 million for Connect the Classroom and over £2 million for attendance mentoring pilots.