Luton schools benefit by £3,642,000 from the Pupil Premium

If you want to know why I remain a supporter of the coalition government and the Liberal Democrat participation in it, despite much of the disappointments and awkwardness, it is for things like this.

On Wednesday the government published the final figures for the amount of the Pupil Premium paid to each school in England in this financial year. Each school is receiving and extra £488 for each child that they have that gets free school meals. This means that the school where I am a governor, the new Downside Primary, is to get £86,376 of funding targeted at those most in need. Across the town as a whole the pupil premium amounts to an extra £3,642,000 for Luton schools.

Not only is the Pupil Premium something that rightly targets resources at areas of social and economic deprivation, so many parts of Luton are doing very well out of it, it is also, as Children’s Minister Sarah Teather MP says, “it’s distinctively Liberal Democrat”.

This content was originally posted on my old Strange Thoughts blog.