Cash top-up for disadvantaged pupils scaled back

Wednesday 22 July 2015

Bonus payments to Jersey schools taking on disadvantaged children are being scaled back because of budget cuts, according to the Education chief.

Instead of a full “Pupil Premium” scheme, the department is now planning to run a pilot scheme in one secondary and two primary schools next year.

The scheme follows UK arrangements which were set up to support disadvantaged children and to try to support individual children and try to close the gap between the results they get, and the higher results achieved by children from middle-class homes.

In a Scrutiny hearing, Education Director Justin Donovan said that the trial scheme would be going ahead after they had to pull plans to just set up a new scheme covering every school.

He said: “Due to budgetary constraints, we have had to readdress the Pupil Premium and run it as pilot scheme from next January to the summer, with the Premium beginning properly in 2016.

“The way the pilot scheme will work has not been decided yet.

“I don’t think £300 per pupil is enough and I think we’ll need to spend £1,000 per pupil to make it work. I would say we’ll need to reach out to 10-15% of the Island population.”