MINISTERS must “come clean” over their slashing of funding for tens of thousands of disadvantaged pupils in England and repay the missing money to schools, teachers demanded today.

The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) union condemned the Department for Education’s (DfE) change to cut-off dates for children to qualify for pupil premium funding, which will lead to many schools losing cash for vital support such as free school meals.

By moving the date back from January this year to last October, the government is estimated to have saved up to £200 million at the expense of the most vulnerable children, based on local authorities’ responses to freedom of information (FOI) requests.

NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman told the union’s virtual AGM today that the government was “intent on clawing back funding from schools,” while Greater Manchester’s Labour Mayor Andy Burnham warned that the “poorest kids” would suffer the most from the DfE’s “money-saving exercise.”

Pupil premium funding amounts to £1,345 a year per primary school pupil and £955 for their secondary school peers who receive free school meals.

Campaigner Andy Jolley, who filed the FOI requests, revealed that schools in Kent would lose £4m in funding, while Birmingham City Council estimated that 3,000 pupils in the city could miss out on free school meals through the change of date.

Mr Whiteman predicted that the cuts would leave school finances, already hit by a decade of austerity, in a “dire state.” 

He said: “The government has made bold claims about their ambitions for recovery and said that no child will be left behind, but it is failing to back these words with action.

"A recent NAHT survey showed that the amount of money lost due to this change is more than schools are being given for education recovery. The government is giving with one hand while knowingly taking away with the other.

“Government must come clean about how much they have saved with this change and they must put that money back into school budgets immediately.”

Schools Minister Nick Gibb told the Commons education select committee on Thursday that estimates of the amount of funding lost were “likely to be inaccurate,” claiming that the figures had not been calculated yet.

Kate Green MP, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, responding to statements by Paul Whiteman NAHT General Secretary that funding cuts are forcing schools to make redundancies, said:

“The Conservatives have weakened our education system with a decade of real terms cuts to per pupil funding and teacher salaries.

“Their stealth cut to the pupil premium is taking more money out of schools at a time when pupils need more support than ever.

“Labour wants to see children at the heart of our national recovery, but Conservative choices risk driving teachers out of their classrooms, letting down our children and putting their recovery from this pandemic at risk."