Should the pupil premium apply to more children?

YES
Jonathan Rallings, assistant director of policy, Barnardo’s

Investment in early years is absolutely crucial; it’s one of the most important and powerful factors in determining a child’s future.

Currently, the lack of additional funding that exists for children aged three and four has the potential to undo all the good work done for children aged two.

By stretching the pupil premium, the government could fill this gap at no extra cost, which would help to close the attainment gap between poor children and their better-off classmates – which is, incidentally, the key aim of the government’s plan to improve social mobility.



YES
Lee Elliot Major, director of development and policy, The Sutton Trust

The yawning gap between the education haves and have-nots begins before birth and widens thereafter, so a pre-school pupil premium makes sense. However, the same caveat would apply to the current pupil premium: it’s not what you spend, but how you spend it that counts.

The Sutton Trust’s toolkit offers the best bets for improving attainment in schools. You would need an equivalent guide for the early years.

The biggest challenge for the pupil premium, indeed education as a whole, is encouraging those working with poorer children to focus on what actually works.



NO
Russell Hobby, general secretary, National Association of Head Teachers

We would like the pupil premium to cover as many children as possible. The trouble is, with a fixed pot of money, the wider you stretch it, the less each person gets.

Below a certain level, it is too small to make a difference. If the government added more cash to the pot, we would be delighted to see it stretched further.



YES
Purnima Tanuku, chief executive, National Day Nurseries Association

With a majority of nurseries telling us that funding for three- and four-year-olds falls short of their delivery costs, it is critical that sufficient funding is available and reaches the front line to enable early years provision to deliver sustainable, high-quality places for our most disadvantaged young children.

Early years funding should be further protected in the schools grant with local authorities prioritising these funds so children and society benefit from the later savings that successful early intervention will bring.