Exclusive: Pupil premium offers big cash bonus for schools in the region

The Yorkshire Post can reveal that the pupil premium will result in at least £52,583,460 being distributed to schools across 13 council areas in the region.

Education chiefs in Yorkshire have warned, however, that money has been taken out of the main revenue grant for schools in order to fund this policy

As a result many primary and secondaries ill have less money in 2011-12.

Schools will also face major cuts in their capital funding which could result in their overall budgets being reduced.

The pupil premium – a key manifesto pledge of both parties in the coalition Government – aims to give schools an incentive for taking on pupils from the most deprived backgrounds.

For the next financial year the pupil premium pays each school £430 for every child they accept who is either eligible to receive free school meals or who is in care.

There is also a £200 services premium paid to schools for every child who has a parent in the armed forces.

This will mean a major funding boost for schools serving Catterick Garrison, the largest army base in Europe, which have a high proportion of pupils who now qualify for the extra funding.

The Government is yet to announce its final pupil premium allocations but based on figures for the number of eligible pupils in 13 of the 15 education authorities in the region, the Yorkshire Post can reveal that more than £50m will be paid to schools through this new fund. Calderdale and North East Lincolnshire did not provide any figures.

Leeds schools are set to receive the largest block of pupil premium cash with £9.1m, while Bradford schools are set to receive around £7.3m.

Leeds Council’s executive member for children’s services Judith Blake said the authority was predicting more schools would be worse off under the new system as a result of cuts elsewhere.

“The situation is very complex and we need to be clear that although this was originally talked about as extra money it is not,” she said. “We have run projections and we think the majority of Leeds schools will actually be worse off.”

North Yorkshire schools will be the biggest beneficiary of the armed services premium, receiving £570,600 – more than twice as much as the rest of the region put together. However the authority’s executive member John Watson, a Tory, said the county would actually be worse off overall as a result of the pupil premium.

He said: “Schools which serve affluent areas with low numbers of pupils on free school meals will find themselves worse off. North Yorkshire will not benefit as a whole as a result of this development.

“However it is one which we welcome because we think it is absolutely the right thing for a new Government to be doing in the interests of social justice.”

Coun Watson also welcomed the creation of an armed services premium:

“For many schools in areas like Catterick Garrison pupils are moved around which does not help them their education and for a lot of children a parent could be away in Afghanistan which obviously leads to anxiety and stress. Sometimes their parents will come back injured or not come back at all so there are also bereavement issues which our schools have to cope with.”

Grahame Shepherd is the headteacher of the school with the highest number of service children in the region and has been at the forefront of a campaign to get the Government to recognise the challenge this creates.

As well as being head at Le Cateau County Primary in Catterick Garrison, Mr Shepherd is also the chairman of the Ministry of Defence Services Children in State Schools working group which has called for extra money to be given to schools for the education of children who have a parent in the armed forces.

Of the 400 pupils at his school 270 have family members in the armed services. Mr Shepherd said the funding would be used to help them carry out the support work which they already provide.

“I think the most important thing is that this money was not linked to raising standards,” he said. “Evidence shows that service children actually perform well compared to others but this money recognises the extra support which schools need to provide.”

He said schools educating service children needed to be able to provide mentoring support and teachers may need bereavement training.

“For many of our children one of their parents have been on active service in Afghanistan for the entire time they have been with us,” he added.

The Government announced last year that services children would be included in the pupil premium. The fund will be £625m in 2011-12, rising each year until 2014-15 when it will be worth £2.5bn.

The Labour Party has disputed the claim that it is extra money as it was described in the Comprehensive Spending Review as “sitting within the overall settlement for schools.”