8.6 We want to see more resources being spent on the education of deprived children. We will make sure this happens by implementing a new Pupil Premium, which will provide additional money for each deprived pupil in the country.
This money will go with eligible pupils to the school they attend, and will be distributed in addition to the underlying schools budget from 2011–12. In total, £2.5 billion a year on top of existing schools spending will be spent on the Pupil Premium by 2014–15. This will mean that head teachers have more money to spend on offering an excellent education to these children: it will also make it more likely that schools will want to admit less affluent children; and it will make it more attractive to open new Free Schools in the most deprived parts of the country.

Addressing the disparity between rich and poor pupils is a top priority of the Coalition Government. Poor pupils continue to underachieve compared with their peers; young children who are in the bottom 20 per cent of attainment in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile are six times more likely to be in the bottom 20 per cent at key stage one than their peers.104 The attainment gap between rich and poor opens up before children start school, is visible during the infant years105 and increases over time, with pupils entitled to free school meals only half as likely to achieve five good GCSEs as their peers.106

It is for this reason that The Coalition: our programme for government sets out our intention to fund ‘a significant premium for disadvantaged children from outside the schools budget’. The Pupil Premium for disadvantaged pupils will provide additional funding specifically linked to disadvantaged pupils, with the primary objective of boosting their attainment. This money will not be ring-fenced at school level as we believe that schools are in the best position to decide how the premium should be used to support their pupils. The funding for the premium will be in addition to the schools budget which has been protected until the end of the Spending Review period. We will expect schools to account to parents for how it is used.

8.7 We will make available the evidence that we have about interventions which are effective in supporting the achievement of disadvantaged children including, for example, intensive support in reading, writing and mathematics. It is head teachers and teachers who are best placed to decide how best to support their pupils and we will make sure that the reformed performance tables include information on how well children eligible for the premium achieve.