SCHOOL leaders in York are redoubling their efforts to stop poorer children falling behind their better-off peers.
The city’s “attainment gap” has faced a set-back this year, with the levels children from deprived backgrounds could achieve in school falling further behind other pupils.
The city’s schools overall perform well, against places with similar demographics. Only around 300 children in York schools qualify for extra “pupil premium” funding, which helps schools teach children from deprived families.
However, the gap between their attainment and their classmates’ is bigger in York, and in 2015/16, the situation worsened by as much as six percentage points in the key early years stages, and by smaller but still significant levels in other groups.
The city’s assistant director for schools, Maxine Squire, said the attainment gap results had been “bumpy”, but added: “We and the schools’ community are not compromising on this.”
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