Unpicking the pupil premium  

So now we know what the much lauded ‘pupil premium' will be worth. Schools in England will apparently get an extra £430 for each disadvantaged pupil they take from next year. The pupil premium has long been a flagship Liberal Democrat policy and it was incorporated into the Coalition Agreement as a quid-pro-quo for supporting policies such as increasing university tuition fees. All schools will receive the money for every pupil whose parents have an annual income of less than £16,000. On the face of it, it seeks to redress the imbalance of funding for pupils in different local authorities. At present, per pupil funding is allocated on the basis of poverty, but at a local authority level. In a constituency like mine, which crosses two local authorities (Tameside and Stockport) it means that Tameside pupils currently have more spent on them than Stockport pupils (by almost £1,000),...