Head’s warning over funding for schools with more poor pupils

The current system uses a pupil’s eligibility for free school meals (FSM) as the main indicator of a child from a deprived background.

And schools get extra funding for every child on FSM through the coalition Government’s pupil premium policy.

However Russell Hobby, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers has called for a new measure to be created so that extra money is directed at schools for pupils who were falling behind for whatever reason. He suggested low attainment in school rather than just poverty should be the trigger for more funding.

He said: “Many head teachers say that FSM does not perfectly capture poverty. There are families who are not eligible who are struggling to get by. More fundamentally, poverty itself is a proxy. Poverty does not inevitably cause educational underachievement. It itself is caused by things that also harm education - family dysfunction, tragedy, low aspirations, lack of knowledge about the ways to work the system, addiction, long term sickness and neglect. We all know of people who have excelled educationally from the poorest of backgrounds and of families who prize education above all else as a route out of poverty.”

He warned that the current system enabled schools to select the type of poor pupils they were looking for

Mr Hobby added: “It enables a subtle form of covert selection.

“Having a high FSM intake triggers funding and can make demonstrating progress easier - if you get the “right” poor pupils. You want those families who, although poor, do prize education. You make it clear, for example, that you will expect a lot of parents and place high demands on them. You suggest that children with special needs might be better served by the school down the road.

“It happens. And it shouldn’t.”