Earlier this year, Nick Clegg announced a new ‘Catch-Up Premium’ that is going to help young schoolchildren making the transition into secondary school.

Any child that doesn’t reach their targets for development in literacy and mathematics at the end of year six will generate an extra £500 investment so that their new secondary school can help them make up the gap.

As with the Pupil Premium and the Summer School initiative, the Catch-Up Premium is a Lib Dem policy designed to target inequalities before they have a chance to bed-in and really affect young people’s life chances.

This premium will be worth £14,500 for local schoolchildren going to Ashton Community Science College in our area.

It will increase the chance for children from disadvantaged backgrounds to keep up with their classmates and reduce the number of school pupils who will see their opportunities shrink through no fault of their own.