A NEW “student premium” for disadvantaged 16- to 19-year-olds should be brought in to address the “cliff-edge” facing students falling behind their peers, the Education Policy Institute said today.

The plea comes after previous research by the think tank suggested that economically disadvantaged students are 3.2 A-level grades behind their peers across their best three subjects.

The gap for persistently disadvantaged students — those who were in poverty for at least 80 per cent of their time in school — was even higher at almost four A-level grades, it showed.