Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of extending Pupil Premium funding to support 16-19-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds in (a) Yeovil constituency, (b) Somerset and (c) England.

The 16 to 19 funding formula includes extra funding for disadvantaged students across England including Yeovil constituency and Somerset. This is made up of two blocks:

• Disadvantage Block 1 funding recognises that there are additional costs incurred in engaging, recruiting, and retaining young people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

• Disadvantage Block 2 funding accounts for the additional costs incurred for helping students who have low prior attainment to achieve their learning goals. Low prior attainment is defined as not achieving English and/or maths GCSEs at grades 9 to 4 by the end of year 11 (typically age 16).

Institutions are free to choose the best ways to use this additional funding to attract, retain and support disadvantaged students and those with learning difficulties and disabilities.

English and maths funding is also available to help institutions support students who have not achieved a GCSE grade 4 or above in English and/or maths to continue to study those subjects.

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