Revealed: How pupil premium plugs the gaps of 'state failures'

The scale of schools’ reliance on pupil premium funding to plug wider “failures of the state” is laid bare by a Tes investigation showing how often the money is being used to feed pupils and fund core staff.

The findings come as the government has pledged to halve the disadvantage-related attainment gap, and after new education secretary Lucy Powell vowed to “rewire” the education system to make it fairer for disadvantaged pupils.

Tes examined more than 500 pupil premium statements from schools receiving the largest allocations in England, together worth nearly £350 million.

This revealed that some schools are using nearly 70 per cent of their pupil premium funding to pay for additional teachers, raising questions over how far a grant intended for disadvantaged pupils is being used to cover core costs.

Amid rising child poverty, some schools are spending more than double what they have been allocated to meet the needs of disadvantaged pupils.

Others are spending six-figure sums for packages covering attendance, mental health, uniforms and food - evidence of how far the grant expands beyond academic interventions.

In some cases, large amounts are being spent on interventions for which the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) says evidence of impact is limited or inconsistent, Tes’ findings reveal.

And while some schools publish detailed descriptions of how pupil premium interventions have helped their pupils, others provide scant evidence of impact - prompting calls for better accountability over the £3 billion a year national scheme.

When pupil premium pays for core costs

This year schools received £1,550 for each primary-aged pupil and £1,100 for each secondary-aged student who had received free school meals in the past six years, with additional funding for children who have been in care.

Every school must publish a strategy statement setting out how it will use this funding to support disadvantaged pupils, but they have significant discretion over how to spend it.

Government guidance requires spending to fall within an evidence-informed selection covering three main areas: high-quality teaching, targeted academic support and wider strategies.

The government explicitly allows whole-class approaches where these meet disadvantaged pupils’ needs, and our investigation shows how far this flexibility can extend.

One school spent £285,000 - more than half of its budget - for an additional teacher in each year group, while another allocates more than £200,000 to two lead subject practitioners.

Elsewhere, a school budgeted £53,362 towards pastoral leadership salaries.

Some schools publish only broad budget headings, with one allocating £409,000 to a teaching package it describes as covering “20 per cent of staff teaching costs”.

And another spent close to its entire budget on “wider strategies”, encompassing attendance officers, pastoral leaders, alternative provision and mental health support.

Dr Chris Tomlinson, CEO of Co-op Academies Trust, which receives nearly £11 million in pupil premium funding across its schools, says that in a large secondary school, a “significant proportion” of the grant can “rightly” be invested in improving core classroom provision rather than individual interventions.

“Without pupil premium funding, the impact would not simply be felt through targeted interventions; core staffing and provision could also be affected,” he adds.

Carl Cullinane, director of research and policy at the Sutton Trust social mobility charity, says whole-school investment can be a legitimate use of the grant, particularly where disadvantage is widespread.

“The most effective thing you can do for a pupil isn’t necessarily a course of tutoring or a specific approach. It’s giving them a great teacher,” he says.

Marc Rowland, a pupil premium expert and lead for the grant at Unity Schools Partnership, similarly argues schools should avoid creating separate “pupil premium interventions” and instead design strategies around pupils at risk of underachievement.

A higher number of disadvantaged pupils can also create economies of scale, he says, but schools still need to answer a fundamental question: “How do we know this approach is making a difference?”

But what happens when schools must fund activities beyond academic interventions?

Tackling poverty

The average school in Tes’ sample received £330,000 in pupil premium funding in 2025-26, but nine schools received more than £1 million, and in some more than three-quarters of pupils were eligible.

Schools are increasingly using this money to tackle barriers outside of the classroom, leaders and experts tell Tes.

One school spends £28,000 on minibus costs and £10,000 on bus passes, while another budgets £34,000 for transport, alongside £20,000 for breakfast provision and £30,000 for an attendance officer.

A separate school strategy outlines the use of local taxi companies and the school minibus to collect pupils when transport issues prevent them from attending.

And one secondary offers disadvantaged students free chicken-and-chips vouchers when they improve their attendance, saying its own analysis shows the initiative helps punctuality and attendance.

Attendance is the second most frequently cited challenge in schools’ pupil premium statements, according to an analysis published by the EEF today.

It was cited by 83 per cent of schools, but rose to 89 per cent among schools with higher proportions of disadvantaged pupils.

Sir Dan Moynihan, chief executive of the Harris Federation, which receives more than £15 million of pupil premium across its schools, says the breadth of spending reflects changes in the circumstances that schools must now confront.

“Food poverty is an increasing problem, and homelessness is an increasing problem,” he says.

“We would be mistaken if we thought that more learning resources alone would raise attainment when children are coming in stressed and hungry.”

Some Harris schools now run community hubs, while staff also help homeless families navigate accommodation issues.

Sir Dan says this is not “mission creep” but increasingly a prerequisite for learning.

Cullinane agrees schools are taking on needs which other services fail to meet.

“I think it’s difficult to criticise any school that is using its funding to help out its pupils in those ways because they are often helping with day-to-day needs that are very real and urgent,” he says.

But he adds: “Ultimately, it’s a failure of the state that the needs of these families are not being met in other ways.”

Is the grant still ‘additional’ funding?

Schools are combining their pupil premium grants with their core school budgets, as the cost of supporting disadvantaged pupils far exceeds the amounts they have been allocated.

Per-pupil funding for the premium has increased 15 per cent over the past 10 years, and was largely unchanged from 2016 to 2021. If the grant had increased at the rate of inflation over the past decade, it would be 24 per cent higher than it is now.

One school was allocated £613,028 in 2025-26 but calculated the full cost of its disadvantage strategy at more than £1.15 million. Its strategy states it includes wider school spending benefiting disadvantaged pupils.

Another had an allocation of £512,000 but a strategy costing £874,955. Its published plan explicitly states that part of its £522,188 wider-strategies funding is “topped up from the main budget”.

Experts and leaders say this raises more complex questions than whether schools are simply diverting pupil premium to plug budget holes.

Sir Dan says rising costs, falling pupil rolls and funding pressures help to explain why heads use all the resources available to them.

“If we, as a country, want to reduce the disadvantage gap, then the resources have to show that we’re serious about doing it,” he says.

The Sutton Trust is calling on the government to restore the real-terms value of the grant.

Cullinane says there is a case for clearer guidance on how schools use the grant, including “how much of your pupil premium it is reasonable to spend on some of these things”.

But he warns that guidance alone cannot solve structural problems around poverty and school funding.

Does the evidence fit?

Tes’ investigation also found a tension between the range of interventions that schools fund and the evidence they are required to provide to justify the spending.

One school explicitly acknowledges that evidence from the EEF shows that reducing class sizes has a relatively low impact, but decided that smaller key stage 4 groups were best for its students.

Another school notes evidence that school uniform itself has little impact on attainment, but it funds spare uniform and sports kit to remove financial barriers and promote belonging.

Professor Lee Elliot Major, one of the original commissioners behind the EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit, says schools need to use evidence in context, rather than simply picking interventions from a list.

“The requirement to cite evidence becomes a compliance box exercise,” he warns, questioning the purpose and effectiveness of the statements.

Professor Becky Francis, chief executive of the EEF, says evidence should begin by identifying the specific barriers that pupils face, rather than by choosing an intervention first.

“Evidence should work hand-in-hand with school leaders’ professional judgement and their knowledge of their own pupils and local context,” she says.

Evaluation and accountability

There is also wide variation in how clearly schools report the cost and impact of their strategies, Tes finds.

Some statements itemise activities individually, including staffing, transport and pastoral support.

Others list numerous interventions beneath single £500,000 or £600,000 budget headings, making it impossible to establish the cost of each activity.

The Department for Education says it reviews a sample of statements each year to ensure compliance, and its guidance also says schools should report progress even when activities do not directly produce academic outcomes.

But the quality of evaluation greatly varies, too, with some schools providing detailed accounts of the impact of their interventions, and others being frank about when interventions don’t work as envisaged.

Elliot Major says schools need to become better at doing exactly that, but he warns against reducing success to short-term attainment measures alone.

“We need a more mature system where schools are developing a long-term strategy and are assessed on how that strategy is progressing,” he says.

Beyond pupil premium

The government pledged in its schools White Paper to consult on changes to “boost the impact” of the pupil premium grant.

The current formula “does not enable disadvantage funding to schools to reflect different lengths and depths of disadvantage that children may be experiencing”, it said.

The DfE said these changes would come with greater support for schools to implement “more effective evidence-based approaches” and a “rebalancing” in how funding is distributed, with income data used as a trigger rather than FSM eligibility.

Sir Dan says the government now needs to put disadvantage back at the centre of the national debate.

“A new national strategy and focus on this would benefit everybody and help everybody focus on using resources in the most effective ways,” he says.

Rowland agrees that the agenda “needs reinvigorating”.

“The pupil premium should only be part of a schools’ approach,” he says. “Schools need to consider all aspects of school life through the lens of disadvantaged pupils.”

The DfE has been contacted for comment.