Downloads

comm113.pdf
PDF | 1.22 MB
<p><p>Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have proposed introducing a 'pupil premium' in England, with the aim of narrowing the educational achievement gap between rich and poor pupils by attaching greater school funding to those from disadvantaged backgrounds.</p><p>In "The pupil premium: assessing the options", IFS researchers assess the rationale for a pupil premium and offer an empirical analysis of how such a scheme might operate in practice and affect school finances. We are very grateful to Esmée Fairbairn Foundation for financing this work.</p> </p>
Authors

Research Fellow
Luke is a Research Fellow at the IFS and his general research interests include education policy, political economy and poverty and inequality.


Research Fellow University of Bristol
Ellen, who was a Senior Research Economist at IFS and is now a Research Fellow, is a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute.
Report details
- DOI
- 10.1920/co.ifs.2010.0113
- Publisher
- IFS
Suggested citation
H, Chowdry and E, Greaves and L, Sibieta. (2010). The pupil premium: assessing the options. London: IFS. Available at: https://ifs.org.uk/publications/pupil-premium-assessing-options-0 (accessed: 17 June 2025).
More from IFS
Understand this issue

Spending Review 2025: What it means and why it matters
We take a closer look at the Spending Review and what the policies mean for public services, investment and the wider economy.
12 June 2025

Sure Start’s wide-ranging and long-lasting benefits highlight the impact of integrated early years services
Over the long run, Sure Start’s financial benefits could be twice as high as its costs
22 May 2025

Drastic times need drastic action: breaking the 50-year tax taboo
Rachel Reeves should consider increasing the basic rate, just as Denis Healey did in 1975
14 April 2025
Policy analysis

What the spending review really means for schools
The next few years are going to be very tight for school budgets and forecasting anything more than a real-terms freeze is highly optimistic.
12 June 2025

If the NHS is treated well, other services will feel the squeeze
Rachel Reeves is to allocate between competing priorities with her spending review, and a 2.5 per cent rise for health could mean cuts elsewhere
9 June 2025

Popularity of new childcare entitlements could leave spending much higher than initially forecast
New childcare entitlements have proven popular – meaning spending from 2026 onwards could be £1 billion higher than originally forecast.
12 June 2025
Academic research

The short- and long-run effects of paying disadvantaged teenagers to go to school
This working paper studies the long-run effect of a cash transfer to disadvantaged students on educational attainment, earnings and crime.
26 February 2025

Vog: using volcanic eruptions to estimate the impact of air pollution on student test scores
We demonstrate that poor air quality disproportionately impacts the human capital accumulation of economically disadvantaged children.
20 February 2025

Changes in marital sorting: theory and evidence from the US
Measuring how assortative matching differs between two economies is difficult, we show how the use of different measures can create different outcomes
27 November 2024