Guidance

Pupil premium 2025 to 2026: technical note

Updated 27 March 2025

Applies to England

The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) closed on 31 March 2025. All activity has moved to the Department for Education (DfE). You should continue to follow this guidance.

1. Introduction

This technical note sets out details of how allocations of pupil premium (PP) grant have been calculated for the financial year 2025 to 2026.

It applies to all eligible settings, as outlined in section 2 of the conditions of grant.

Where this note refers to ‘mainstream and special schools’ it refers to local authority maintained schools, academies, free schools, and non-maintained special schools.

Details concerning how allocations have been calculated for general hospital schools and independent settings are set out in sections 7 and 8 of this technical note, respectively.

2. Funding criteria and allocation calculation

2.1 ‘Ever 6’ free school meals (FSM) children

For mainstream and special schools, the PP grant for financial year 2025 to 2026 will include pupils recorded in the October 2024 school census who have had a recorded period of FSM eligibility since (and including) January 2019, as well as those first recorded as eligible in October 2024.

For PRUs and AP academies, the PP  grant for financial year 2025 to 2026 will include pupils recorded in the January 2025 school census who have had a recorded period of FSM eligibility since (and including) May 2019, as well as those first recorded as eligible in January 2025.

For the purposes of this note, these pupils are collectively referred to as ‘FSM Ever 6’

2.2 Previously looked-after children (PLAC)

For mainstream and special schools, the PP grant for financial year 2025 to 2026 will include children recorded in the October 2024 school census who were looked after by a local authority or other state care immediately before being adopted, or who left local authority or other state care on a special guardianship order or child arrangements order (previously known as a residence order). This includes children adopted from state care or equivalent from outside England and Wales.

For PRUs and AP academies, PP grant for financial year 2025 to 2026 will include PLAC recorded in the January 2025 school census.

2.3 Looked-after children (LAC)

PP grant is allocated to local authorities based on the number of LAC supported by the authority. LAC are defined in the Children Act 1989 as those who are in the care of, or provided with accommodation by, an English local authority. It is for the local authority to decide how much of this funding to pass on to the child’s school. If LAC PP funding is retained by the local authority it must still be spent to improve the attainment of eligible pupils and in accordance with the menu of approaches (see section 4.1 of the pupil premium conditions of grant for further detail).

In June 2025, an initial allocation will be calculated using the number of children looked after for at least one day, as recorded in the March 2024 children looked-after data return (SSDA903) and aged 4 to 15 on 31 August 2023.

A final allocation in December 2025 will use the number of children looked after for at least one day during the year ending March 2025, as recorded in the March 2025 children looked-after data return (SSDA903) and aged 4 to 15 on 31 August 2024.

2.4 Service children

Pupils in state-funded schools in England attract the service pupil premium (SPP) if they meet any of the following criteria:

• one of their parents is serving in the regular armed forces (including pupils with a parent who is on full commitment as part of the full-time reserve service) or is in the armed forces of another nation and is stationed in England – and they have been registered as a ‘service child’ in the most recent autumn Department for Education (DfE) school census
• they do not currently have ‘service child’ status but they have been registered as a ‘service child’ on any DfE school census in the past 6 years
• one of their parents died whilst serving in the armed forces and the pupil receives a pension under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme or the War Pensions Scheme

For mainstream and special schools, the SPP for financial year 2025 to 2026 will include pupils recorded in the October 2024 school census who have been recorded as a service child at any point since the January 2019 census, as well as those recorded as a service child for the first time in the October 2024 school census.

For PRUs and AP academies, the SPP for financial year 2025 to 2026 will include pupils recorded in the January 2025 school census who have been recorded as a service child at any point since the May 2019 census, as well as those recorded as a service child for the first time in the January 2025 school census.

3. Rates for eligible pupils

The PP grant per pupil rates for financial year 2025 to 2026 are set out below.

Pupils who are recorded as LAC/PLAC and FSM Ever 6 will attract the LAC/PLAC per pupil amount only. Eligible service children will attract the SPP rate in addition to any other pupil premium grant eligibility rate.

Disadvantaged pupils	per pupil rate
Pupils in year groups reception to year 6 recorded as FSM Ever 6	£1,515
Pupils in years 7 to 11 recorded as FSM Ever 6	£1,075
Looked-after children (LAC)	£2,630
Previously looked-after children (PLAC)	£2,630

Service children	per pupil rate
Eligible service children in year groups reception to year 11	£350

Where national curriculum year groups do not apply to a pupil, the pupil will attract pupil premium grant if aged 4 to 15 as recorded in the October 2024 school census for mainstream and special schools, and in the January 2025 school census for PRUs and AP academies. These pupils will attract the same amount of funding as if they were in the year-group that corresponds to their age.

4. Allocations

Updated allocations will be published shortly before each instalment is paid - see section 3.2 of the conditions of grant for the payment timetable.

DfE will allocate PP grant to academies directly. This allocation will be based on FSM Ever 6 pupils, PLAC and eligible service children.

DfE will allocate PP grant to local authorities for each school they maintain. Local authorities must allocate these amounts (minus the portion of the funding based on LAC eligibility) without delay for each full time equivalent (FTE) pupil on the October 2024 school census for mainstream and special schools, and on the January 2025 school census for PRUs.

Where a pupil is recorded as both LAC and FSM Ever 6, the pupil is included only in the LAC count for the local authority allocation. This means the school’s PP grant allocation will not include a payment for that pupil. As a result, the update in December 2025 may have an impact on some schools’ PP grant allocations as those recorded as both LAC and FSM Ever 6 will be excluded from the school’s PP grant allocation.

PP grant will be allocated on the basis of sole and dual main registrations only. Any transfer of funds between a dual main school and a dual subsidiary school is a matter for the two schools.

Schools federated, or to be federated, under the provisions of section 24 of the Education Act 2002 during the financial year beginning 1 April 2025 shall have grant allocated to them as if they were not federated.

Initial allocations will be published in March 2025 for all schools that complete the October 2024 census. We will confirm allocations in June 2025, before the first payment. The June allocations will include PRUs and AP academies that complete the January 2025 census.

5. Payment timetable

See the PP conditions of grant section 3.2 for more information.

For local authority maintained schools

See section 6 of this technical note for funding arrangements for maintained schools that are converting to academies during the financial year beginning 1 April 2025.

For academies and free schools:

Academies and free schools that open during the financial year 2025 to 2026 and do not have a predecessor school will be paid their allocation in full in April 2026, once their census data is available.

6. School closures, openings and academy conversions

For new mainstream and special settings that opened after October 2024, DfE will use the October 2025 school census to calculate grant allocations.

For new PRUs and AP academies that opened after January 2025, DfE will use the October 2025 school census data to calculate grant allocations.

For new mainstream schools, special settings, PRUs and AP academies that open between the October 2025 and January 2026 school census, DfE will use the January 2026 school census.

In each case, the allocation will be prorated to the proportion of the 2025 to 2026 financial year that the setting is open.

A revised allocation will be made to mainstream and special settings that are not fully open and are still growing their year groups since opening. This means that at the start of the autumn term 2024, if the setting has been open for fewer years than the number of year groups in the setting, the setting’s allocation will be revised in February 2026. It will be based on the increase in eligible pupils between the October 2024 and the October 2025 school census. The increase will be prorated by seven-twelfths to reflect that the additional year groups have been in place for 7 months of the financial year.

If a setting closes during the financial year, the local authority (for maintained schools) or DfE (for academies) should allocate the grant for the proportion of the financial year the setting is open.

This grant is allocated on a school level basis. DfE will not seek to clawback any grant funding from a local authority if a school converts to academy status after the payment is made. The grant allocation is intended for the school and it will be assumed the local authority passed on the entire grant funding to the school immediately upon receipt from the DfE. In addition, any unspent grant funding should remain with the school after it converts. 

In respect to calculating a school’s final accounts, any prorated amount up to the point of conversion is included in the balance calculation for the school. The remaining amount which relates to the period after the school has converted should be accounted for by the academy.

Where a school has converted to an academy by 1 April 2025, the academy will receive its pupil premium grant directly from DfE.

Local authorities should pay the PP grant to schools due to convert to academy status as follows:

Date of conversion to academy	Proportion of pupil premium grant passed on by local authority
On or by 1 September 2025	5/12s of its annual allocation
After 1 September 2025 and on or by 1 January 2026	9/12s of its allocation
After 1 January 2026	All of the allocation

A local authority’s PP grant allocation will be adjusted to reflect these conversions and the remaining allocation will be paid directly to the academy.

7. General hospital schools

PP grant for general hospital schools will be based on the number of FTE pupils recorded as FSM eligible in the January 2025 school level annual school census (SLASC).

Allocations for each pupil in these settings will be calculated using the per secondary pupil rate of £1,075. This funding will be paid in 1 payment in June 2025.

8. Independent settings

For PP grant based on FSM Ever 6, eligible service children and PLAC, DfE will allocate funding to each local authority for eligible pupils in any independent setting where the authority pays full tuition fees.

This does not include non-maintained special schools, who will receive PP grant direct from DfE.

The PP grant for financial year 2025 to 2026 will include pupils recorded in the January 2025 AP census. For FSM Ever 6 pupils, this includes those who have had a recorded period of FSM eligibility since May 2019, as well as those first recorded as eligible in January 2025.