How Schools Can Be Used To Teach And Evaluate The Advantages And Disadvantages

Pupil Premium

The Pupil Premium is another strategy in which the Government plan to overcome poverty. The Government provides schools with additional funding for the children that are at a disadvantage, such as being on Free School Meals (FSM's). This strategy has been implemented in order to attempt to close the attainment gap between the advantaged and disadvantage children. This is available to local authority schools and special schools, for each children registered as eligible for receiving FSM's. A child in reception to year 6 that is eligible for FSM's, the school receives £1,320 whereas those who are in year 7 to year 11 eligible for FSM's the school will receive £935. Furthermore children who have left the care of the local authority due to adoption, a guardianship order, a child

An advantage of this strategy is that children are targeted in order for the school to purchase specific items for those children that are at a disadvantage, for example if a child is doing particularly bad in a certain lesson such as mathematics or English, the school may hire a tutor for them numerous times or just once a week. This will ensure that the children that are at a disadvantage are able to catch up to their peers that they may be behind. A second advantage is that the children that are at a disadvantage, can start doing better in school due to the additional support that is being provided by the staff, extra resources and any mentors or tutors that may come into the school to help the child. Additional support could also be helping the child with their transport to school, for example, if they are constantly late for their first lesson everyday, the school may purchase a bike to lend to the child in order for them to stop relying on public transport. Additionally the school could also help the child with providing them transport such as a minibus that picks children up and takes them to school