Short thread on how DfE sneaked out a £250 million cut to school budgets in the middle of a pandemic and how it will impact the poorest and most vulnerable pupils

No publicity, no great public announcement as @educationgovuk cut £1/4 billion from its Pupil Premium budget

Pupil Premium (PP) is extra funding to help disadvantaged children & those living in poverty, it’s funding to help with levelling up & social mobility

Schools receive extra money for pupils claiming free school meals, it’s currently £935 for secondary & £1320 for primary

The funding was calculated based on the second annual school census which is in January, the first census being early October

This gives schools time to encourage FSM registration & check everything before the dataset is used

As of last Januarys census there were 1.44 million pupils registered to receive Free school meals

Then we had COVID

Despite the government’s furlough scheme & other support, we saw a huge increases in job insecurity and a rise in numbers claiming Universal credit

By October the number of pupils claiming free school meals had risen to over 1.6million

That’s an extra 200,000 pupils below the UC threshold & entitled to FSM

It seems highly likely the numbers continued to rise, especially with a 2 month lag between UC claims & eligibility