Summary
How do you increase the attainment of disadvantaged children? Poorer children consistently perform worse at school by not reaching higher grades at age 16, compared to richer children. There is broad agreement, across party lines that they require more money to help them succeed and reduce inequality. Therefore, schools in England adopted the pupil premium policy in 2011 where extra funding was attached to each child in receipt of free school meals. Professor of Education at University College London, Dr Rebecca Allen assesses how well the policy has been working. Producer: Nina Robinson Editor: Hugh Levinson
Transcript
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| 0:41.0 | Hi and welcome to the Analysis Podcast from BBC Radio. podcasts. at school. In England, children with better off parents do much better in their exams, |
| 0:56.0 | and that's a huge problem in terms of trying to increase social mobility. |
| 1:00.0 | In recent times, there's one significant education policy brought in by the Coalition, Lib Dem and Conservative government to help disadvantaged children. |
| 1:10.0 | Professor Becky Allen from University College London looks at the pupil premium. |
| 1:17.0 | A bold vision to address growing inequality of opportunity by targeting children in poverty. |
| 1:27.0 | The pupil premium was set up to close the gap in achievement between rich and poor children by giving extra money to English schools. |
| 1:36.0 | As an academic, surveying teachers and working with policy makers in the Department for Education, |
| 1:42.0 | it is clear to me that despite good |
| 1:45.1 | intentions it throws up some serious problems. For far too long the greatest |
| 1:51.2 | predictor of how well you will do at school has been your parents' income. |
| 1:55.8 | And that's why the government is introducing a pupil premium. |
| 1:59.4 | Sarah Tether, the then children and families minister, announcing extra funding for the pupil |
| 2:04.8 | premium in 2011. Today the government spends 2.4 billion pounds a year on it. |
| 2:11.3 | That's about 6% of its total education budget, allocated to |
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