Move to boost poorer pupils' entry chances

THE country's most popular schools could be encouraged to favour poorer children over their middle class peers under controversial admissions changes being studied by the coalition Government.

Children who are eligible for free school meals could find themselves considered for admission to some of the UK's best performing secondary schools in a bid to improve social mobility for some of the country's least well-off students.

Education Secretary Michael Gove is understood to have asked officials to "examine the feasibility" of allowing new "free schools" and academies to use the criterion, alongside issues such as where a family lives, when deciding who gets a place.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Just 27 per cent of "free school meal" children – those from a household earning 16,000 or less per year – achieve five A-C grades, compared with 54 percent of children from more affluent backgrounds. If approved it could apply to children from more than a million households.

The idea is intended to complement the Government's "pupil premium" scheme – which will see up to 2,000 of extra funding made available for each child at a school who is eligible for free meals.

Even the tentative suggestion is, however, likely to provoke criticism, from middle class families who have paid inflated property prices to ensure they are within catchment areas for the best schools.

It is not clear whether only poorer children living within catchment would be in line for preferential treatment – or whether those outside could also benefit.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

A source close to Mr Gove said social mobility had "gone backwards" under Labour, and the education system was "one of the most segregated and stratified in the world".

"The central aim of the Government's education policy is making opportunity more equal," the source said.

"As part of our commitment to helping every child do better we're introducing a pupil premium – which will mean more cash for the poorest children in all our schools.

"And we're exploring how schools which wish to target their efforts on helping the poorest can be helped."

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Mr Gove is said to be keen to emulate the success of charter schools in the United States, which explicitly target their attention on poorer children.

But Martin Johnson, deputy general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: "There is a lot of difference between 'allowing' and 'requiring' popular schools to give preference to children receiving free school meals.

"Making schools favour poorer children would revolutionise school intakes but if schools are left to make their own choices few would give preference to disadvantaged pupils because, on the whole, educating them is much more demanding as many need far more help and resources."

Headteachers in Yorkshire gave the notion a mixed reaction.

Dennis Richards, headteacher at St Aidan's Church of England High School in Harrogate, said: "It is a huge agenda. All parents are the same in that they want to secure the best possible education for their children.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"We should be making these opportunities available anyway and indeed St Aidan's is already done that to some extent but not as much as we would like to.

"But that is true of schools in the so-called leafy suburbs. The problem is it won't apply to places like Leeds Grammar School or Ripon Grammar School.

"Independent schools enjoy charitable tax status precisely because they were founded to teach the children of the poor."

And Neil Clephan, headteacher of Roundhay School, Leeds – which has a varied mixture of social backgrounds amongst its pupils – said that more detail on how the scheme would be applied was needed.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Sally Copley, head of UK policy at the Save the Children charity, said it was right that poorer children be given priority in admissions.

"It's simply wrong that, at every stage of schooling, the poorest children do worse and make less progress than their better-off classmates," she said.

Premium Sum per student still to be decided

The Pupil Premium is a sum of money which will be paid to British

schools for each poorer student they agree to admit.

It is due to be rolled out in autumn 2011 with the exact sums involved still the subject of negotiations between the the Treasury and Department for Education.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Liberal Democrats have called for a budget of about 2.5bn annually for the scheme.

State schools currently receive 4,000 in direct funding for each pupil they take but under the new scheme this could increase to around 6,000 for each pupil they take on who is in receipt of free school meals.

All told it could involve a schools receiving as much as 50 per cent more funding when it comes to providing education of poorer pupils, with schools to be given control over how this money is spent.

Related topics: