Improving Educational Outcomes For Disadvantaged Children

This report by the National Audit Office examines whether DfE is achieving value for money through its funding to support the attainment of disadvantaged children in educational settings in England, from early years to the end of key stage 4.

It assesses:

• Whether DfE has a coherent approach to support the attainment of disadvantaged children, and its progress against its objectives.
• How DfE understands the attainment of children and how it evaluates what works to effectively allocate resources.
• The accountability arrangements and support DfE provides schools and early years providers to ensure value for money.

Key Findings:

• Before the pandemic the educational attainment of disadvantaged children, as with all children, had improved but the picture since is less clear.
• DfE has a strategic priority to reduce the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers, but for children leaving school the gap is wider than it was a decade ago.
• Responsibility for supporting disadvantaged children’s attainment is spread across DfE, without a robust whole-system perspective.
• DfE cannot achieve its objective without working more effectively with others, but this is challenging without government having a shared aim.
• DfE has several different measures to assess the attainment of disadvantaged children, but there are weaknesses in its approach.
• DfE cannot assess whether it is making the required progress reducing the attainment gap or where further action may be needed.
• DfE has limited evidence on how well almost half of its £9.2 billion estimated spend supports the attainment of disadvantaged children, which impacts its ability to make well-informed decisions.
• DfE cannot explain why it increased disadvantage- and deprivation-related funding through the national funding formula and not, for example, pupil premium.
• Early years provision can support the attainment of disadvantaged children, but DfE spends comparatively less on pupil premium for early years than for schools.
• DfE has strong evidence for the value of tutoring but has stopped providing specific funding, instead relying on schools deciding to fund it themselves from 2024/25.
• DfE gives providers flexibility to use their funding for disadvantaged children according to local circumstances, while providing support on how to do so.
• DfE does not have a good understanding of how schools spend disadvantage-related funding and there are weaknesses in how schools are held to account for their spending.
• DfE has a breadth of evidence on the importance of teaching quality in improving educational attainment, particularly for those who are disadvantaged, but recruitment and retention challenges persist.
• Disadvantaged children’s absence from school has increased significantly, with DfE developing a response while continuing to build its understanding of what works.

Recommendations:

The report recommends that DfE should take a clearer whole-system approach by:

• More clearly setting out how the range of its interventions come together, to help: understand how they individually and collectively support the attainment of disadvantaged children; ensure that objectives are aligned; and recognise and manage any gaps and trade-offs;
• Using this work, alongside evidence of what works, to inform clear, evidence-based decisions on how it distributes, and increases or decreases, funding; as part of this, it should compare the value of certain interventions, such as investing more in early years compared with schools; and
• Setting out how it will more effectively engage with wider government to help develop a shared vision, robust joint risk assessment, clear responsibilities, and an understanding of how respective departmental priorities could be better integrated.

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