Pupil premium: making an impact
With increasing accountability for the attainment of disadvantaged pupils, how you use the pupil premium is more important than ever. In this article, Jeremy Sutcliffe highlights the recent announcements and talks to school leaders involved in finding effective strategies.
This article is reproduced from ldr magazine © 2013 National College for Teaching and Leadership
For nearly two decades John Dunford has been urging governments to provide schools with extra money to educate disadvantaged children. So when the coalition government introduced the pupil premium two years ago he was one of its most vocal supporters.
“The pupil premium is one of the best policies in education we have seen for many years. It’s something I personally was advocating as far back as 1995 – that schools should be given additional money to recognise the greater size of the task of educating disadvantaged young people,” says the former general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL).
John, who retired three years ago after 12 years as ASCL leader, has now taken up a new role as Pupil Premium Champion. His task will be to talk to schools about the most effective ways of using the extra money and feed back issues raised by school leaders to ministers and civil servants.
The appointment is one of three new measures announced in July by Schools Minister David Laws, designed to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils.
From the start of the new academic year, schools will be held to account by Ofsted for the attainment of their disadvantaged pupils and the progress they make, with particular emphasis on closing the achievement gap with other pupils.
In addition, schools judged by Ofsted as ‘requiring improvement’ and that also raise concerns about the attainment of disadvantaged pupils will take part in a pupil premium review. They will be supported by an experienced headteacher from another school with the aim of developing a strategy for using the premium more effectively.
Since the premium was introduced in April 2011 it has grown substantially. All schools now receive an additional £900 per disadvantaged pupil, with the criteria based on eligibility for free school meals (FSM). In another significant development, the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced in July that the premium in primary schools would rise to £1,300 per eligible child and David Laws announced in September that the premium in secondary schools would rise to £935, both from September 2014. And just this week, the Children’s Minister Edward Timpson announced that looked after children will attract an increased pupil premium of £1,900 from £900 in 2014 to 2015. Also, funding will be based on the number of children looked after from the first day of care rather than for six months or more. Other children included are those adopted from care under the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and those children who leave care under a special guardianship or residence order.
The additional money is linked with proposals to set higher floor standards – with primary schools required to get at least 85% of their pupils, except for those with particular special needs – to reach a good level of attainment at the end of key stage 2.
With significant extra money targeted on helping disadvantaged pupils to achieve, it is inevitable that school leaders should face additional accountability, says John Dunford.
“The good news is schools are not being held to account for how they spend it but on the impact that they make. That gives considerable latitude to schools.”
The size of the task schools face in closing the achievement gap is clear from the latest attainment figures. In 2012, 68% of pupils eligible for the pupil premium achieved level 4 or higher at the end of key stage 2. The comparative figure is 84% of all other pupils – a gap of 16 percentage points.
Moreover, the gap widens considerably by the time pupils take their GCSEs, with only 38.5% of pupils eligible for the premium achieving five A* to C grades in 2012, compared with 65.7% of their peer group – a staggering gap of 27.2 points.
“One of the most interesting statistics is that disadvantaged children do best in schools where there are either very few disadvantaged children or very many. It’s a U-shaped graph,” says John.
“The picture is very variable across the country. London schools have made considerably more progress than elsewhere. For example, the gap of 5 A* to C grades including English and maths between pupil premium children and the rest is under 20% in London, whereas in West Berkshire and Wokingham, for example, the gap is 40%.
“The gap on average is less in city areas than elsewhere and that is because of the pressure there’s been to raise attainment over the last 10 years. You can’t raise attainment in cities unless you improve the achievement of disadvantaged pupils, because the proportion of disadvantaged pupils is much higher.”
The introduction of the pupil premium has focused attention of both policy makers and school leaders on identifying effective intervention strategies to help disadvantaged pupils catch up with their peers.
In 2012, a new online toolkit was developed by the Education Endowment Foundation and the Sutton Trust to help school leaders identify the most promising and cost-effective ways to target their pupil premium money. The toolkit identifies ‘effective feedback’ as the highest-impact strategy for low cost. It also asks serious questions about high-cost strategies that produce little or no impact.
As part of the government effort to provide leadership support for schools struggling to raise the attainment disadvantaged pupils, the National College for Teaching and Leadership undertook a closing the gap action research project (published April 2013). The project, led by a group of national leaders of education (NLEs) focused on the most effective strategies employed by teaching school alliances.
This autumn a major two-year research project involving over 750 schools and 190 teaching school alliances has begun to test six of the most effective interventions identified by the action research project. The chosen interventions will focus on three themes: numeracy, literacy and leadership. Each will be tested in participating schools and then measured against progress in schools not using the intervention to determine its effect.
The Closing the Gap: Test and Learn project has been billed as the biggest randomised controlled trial ever held in schools. The programme is run by CfBT in partnership with Durham University, Oxford University and CUREE, the centre of expertise in evidence-based practice in education.
Dr Keith Watson, director of teaching and learning for the Portswood, St Mary’s and Weston Park family of primary schools in Southampton, who also works with around 70 schools in the Portswood Teaching School Alliance, believes the project has the potential to transform the way teachers and school leaders work.
“Closing the gap in achievement will be the biggest challenge in education for the next 10 years and the more we can know about the right kind of interventions to improve pupil progress the better. What’s fantastic about the project is that it works on two levels. First and foremost, it’s about identifying the things that work best and implementing them. But also it’s about shifting the way we work and the way we go about things as a profession.
“It will ensure that our decisions are far more informed by research. That has got to permeate right the way down from school leadership to every level of the school – from NQT training to middle leadership and all the rest.”
Helen Newcombe, assistant principal responsible for the pupil premium at The Heath School, Runcorn, has built on her own study of successful interventions – with her colleague Nicola McNamee – using the pupil premium at The Heath School. The research led to new strategies being introduced at The Heath to tackle underachievement by disadvantaged pupils, targeted on three areas – transition from primary school, engagement and literacy.
“We have seen a measurable impact."
"At GCSE we have reduced the gap between FSM and non-FSM students achieving five A* to C grades including English and maths over the past three years, and this year’s GCSE results indicate a reduction of over 5%,” she says. [Please note this is based on un-validated data.]
It is empirical evidence such as this that excites John Dunford as he prepares to go around the country to engage with school leaders and bang the drum for a policy he believes will make a real difference to the life chances of thousands of disadvantaged children.
“It’s a huge task but equally there is a big incentive for schools to raise attainment across the board by putting in place policies that raise the attainment of disadvantaged young people. After all, that’s why most people came into teaching, to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds to do well in life. I think this policy and this role that I have is absolutely at the core of the mission of the teaching profession for social justice and life opportunities.”
Published October 2013
Jeremy Sutcliffe is a freelance education writer and author.
With increasing accountability for the attainment of disadvantaged pupils, how you use the pupil premium is more important than ever. In this article, Jeremy Sutcliffe highlights the recent announcements and talks to school leaders involved in finding effective strategies.
This article is reproduced from ldr magazine © 2013 National College for Teaching and Leadership
For nearly two decades John Dunford has been urging governments to provide schools with extra money to educate disadvantaged children. So when the coalition government introduced the pupil premium two years ago he was one of its most vocal supporters.
“The pupil premium is one of the best policies in education we have seen for many years. It’s something I personally was advocating as far back as 1995 – that schools should be given additional money to recognise the greater size of the task of educating disadvantaged young people,” says the former general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL).
John, who retired three years ago after 12 years as ASCL leader, has now taken up a new role as Pupil Premium Champion. His task will be to talk to schools about the most effective ways of using the extra money and feed back issues raised by school leaders to ministers and civil servants.
The appointment is one of three new measures announced in July by Schools Minister David Laws, designed to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils.
From the start of the new academic year, schools will be held to account by Ofsted for the attainment of their disadvantaged pupils and the progress they make, with particular emphasis on closing the achievement gap with other pupils.
In addition, schools judged by Ofsted as ‘requiring improvement’ and that also raise concerns about the attainment of disadvantaged pupils will take part in a pupil premium review. They will be supported by an experienced headteacher from another school with the aim of developing a strategy for using the premium more effectively.
Since the premium was introduced in April 2011 it has grown substantially. All schools now receive an additional £900 per disadvantaged pupil, with the criteria based on eligibility for free school meals (FSM). In another significant development, the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced in July that the premium in primary schools would rise to £1,300 per eligible child and David Laws announced in September that the premium in secondary schools would rise to £935, both from September 2014. And just this week, the Children’s Minister Edward Timpson announced that looked after children will attract an increased pupil premium of £1,900 from £900 in 2014 to 2015. Also, funding will be based on the number of children looked after from the first day of care rather than for six months or more. Other children included are those adopted from care under the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and those children who leave care under a special guardianship or residence order.
The additional money is linked with proposals to set higher floor standards – with primary schools required to get at least 85% of their pupils, except for those with particular special needs – to reach a good level of attainment at the end of key stage 2.
With significant extra money targeted on helping disadvantaged pupils to achieve, it is inevitable that school leaders should face additional accountability, says John Dunford.
“The good news is schools are not being held to account for how they spend it but on the impact that they make. That gives considerable latitude to schools.”
The size of the task schools face in closing the achievement gap is clear from the latest attainment figures. In 2012, 68% of pupils eligible for the pupil premium achieved level 4 or higher at the end of key stage 2. The comparative figure is 84% of all other pupils – a gap of 16 percentage points.
Moreover, the gap widens considerably by the time pupils take their GCSEs, with only 38.5% of pupils eligible for the premium achieving five A* to C grades in 2012, compared with 65.7% of their peer group – a staggering gap of 27.2 points.
“One of the most interesting statistics is that disadvantaged children do best in schools where there are either very few disadvantaged children or very many. It’s a U-shaped graph,” says John.
“The picture is very variable across the country. London schools have made considerably more progress than elsewhere. For example, the gap of 5 A* to C grades including English and maths between pupil premium children and the rest is under 20% in London, whereas in West Berkshire and Wokingham, for example, the gap is 40%.
“The gap on average is less in city areas than elsewhere and that is because of the pressure there’s been to raise attainment over the last 10 years. You can’t raise attainment in cities unless you improve the achievement of disadvantaged pupils, because the proportion of disadvantaged pupils is much higher.”
The introduction of the pupil premium has focused attention of both policy makers and school leaders on identifying effective intervention strategies to help disadvantaged pupils catch up with their peers.
In 2012, a new online toolkit was developed by the Education Endowment Foundation and the Sutton Trust to help school leaders identify the most promising and cost-effective ways to target their pupil premium money. The toolkit identifies ‘effective feedback’ as the highest-impact strategy for low cost. It also asks serious questions about high-cost strategies that produce little or no impact.
As part of the government effort to provide leadership support for schools struggling to raise the attainment disadvantaged pupils, the National College for Teaching and Leadership undertook a closing the gap action research project (published April 2013). The project, led by a group of national leaders of education (NLEs) focused on the most effective strategies employed by teaching school alliances.
This autumn a major two-year research project involving over 750 schools and 190 teaching school alliances has begun to test six of the most effective interventions identified by the action research project. The chosen interventions will focus on three themes: numeracy, literacy and leadership. Each will be tested in participating schools and then measured against progress in schools not using the intervention to determine its effect.
The Closing the Gap: Test and Learn project has been billed as the biggest randomised controlled trial ever held in schools. The programme is run by CfBT in partnership with Durham University, Oxford University and CUREE, the centre of expertise in evidence-based practice in education.
Dr Keith Watson, director of teaching and learning for the Portswood, St Mary’s and Weston Park family of primary schools in Southampton, who also works with around 70 schools in the Portswood Teaching School Alliance, believes the project has the potential to transform the way teachers and school leaders work.
“Closing the gap in achievement will be the biggest challenge in education for the next 10 years and the more we can know about the right kind of interventions to improve pupil progress the better. What’s fantastic about the project is that it works on two levels. First and foremost, it’s about identifying the things that work best and implementing them. But also it’s about shifting the way we work and the way we go about things as a profession.
“It will ensure that our decisions are far more informed by research. That has got to permeate right the way down from school leadership to every level of the school – from NQT training to middle leadership and all the rest.”
Helen Newcombe, assistant principal responsible for the pupil premium at The Heath School, Runcorn, has built on her own study of successful interventions – with her colleague Nicola McNamee – using the pupil premium at The Heath School. The research led to new strategies being introduced at The Heath to tackle underachievement by disadvantaged pupils, targeted on three areas – transition from primary school, engagement and literacy.
“We have seen a measurable impact."
"At GCSE we have reduced the gap between FSM and non-FSM students achieving five A* to C grades including English and maths over the past three years, and this year’s GCSE results indicate a reduction of over 5%,” she says. [Please note this is based on un-validated data.]
It is empirical evidence such as this that excites John Dunford as he prepares to go around the country to engage with school leaders and bang the drum for a policy he believes will make a real difference to the life chances of thousands of disadvantaged children.
“It’s a huge task but equally there is a big incentive for schools to raise attainment across the board by putting in place policies that raise the attainment of disadvantaged young people. After all, that’s why most people came into teaching, to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds to do well in life. I think this policy and this role that I have is absolutely at the core of the mission of the teaching profession for social justice and life opportunities.”
Published October 2013
Jeremy Sutcliffe is a freelance education writer and author.
