Pupil Premium a good start?

£430 for pupils on Free School Meals, the same for Looked After Children an £200 for children from an Army background.

Maybe the final numbers are not as big as those originally suggested (my estimate is they are worth an extra 8%) but they will make a difference.

What will be interesting to see is how schools apply the premium. It isn't ring fenced so whilst it follows the deprived youngster, it isn't necessarily spent on that person. If schools start to use it for other intervention strategies (perhaps to boost borderline C/D performance) instead of Foundation Learning, then I think we'll quickly see this policy change.

But at this stage, it's a good start in my view.