DfE delays pupil premium allocation
Schools must wait until May to find out their pupil premium funding allocations for the next financial year, the Department for Education (DfE) has announced.
The DfE updated the information today and justified the wait as "a problem with its identification of reception aged pupils" who qualify for pupil premium.
Pupil premium is extra funding given to schools to better support children who have been eligible for free school meals at any point in the past six years, as well as looked-after and previously-looked-after children.
The amount of pupil premium funding schools receive is decided by how many disadvantaged pupils they have – schools then receive funding per pupil premium-eligible child.
The grant will be worth £2.9 billion to schools in 2024-25.
The DfE said the delay would “not impact the timeline for payments in July 2024."
Final allocations for the current financial year, which ends next week, will be published “by the end of March 2024 as planned”.
Schools have been told to “contact the customer help centre if you have any questions."
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