5. Debate on the Children, Young People and Education Committee Report: Targeted Funding to Improve Educational Outcomes

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:24 pm on 7 November 2018.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Jenny Rathbone Jenny Rathbone Labour 4:24, 7 November 2018

I think the issue that most concerns me is how we manage to use this targeted money to level out the opportunities for young people in more deprived areas, or the pupils within schools who don't have the range of possibilities that better off households can provide for their children. I think there's a big challenge for those schools in my constituency that have significant numbers of mobility within year and within the period of the lifetime of the child's presence in the primary school. So, for example, at Albany school in Plasnewydd, there's a huge range of movement in and out of the school that occurs throughout the year. So, if we only have a snapshot of eligibility, this can lead to very challenging fluctuations in funding from one year to the next. So, for example, in a particular year, the lowest year they had was 80 pupils eligible for free school meals. Then, in the following year, there were 100 pupils. The school had planned for the current year that there would be funding for 100 pupils, but has now got to cope with £30,000 less in its budget with very little warning. That makes it extremely challenging for headteachers to ensure that they are providing for deprived children without overspending a budget they haven't got. So, I think that if there could be more monitoring over a slightly longer period, rather than just a snapshot on a particular day of the year, that would help those schools that do experience huge levels of mobility to be able to plan a bit better and not have surprises. Overall, though, I think that the pupil deprivation grant is hugely important in ensuring that every child gets the opportunity to succeed to the best of their abilities, because that simply isn't going to happen if we simply have per-pupil funding.