The Pupil Premium: An Update – Ofsted, July 2014

“Routinely, good and outstanding schools demonstrate unwavering commitment to closing

the attainment gap.”

£2.5 billion of taxpayers’ funds are being spent through the Pupil Premium in 2014 – 2015.

The primary message that associated with this spending is that it has to be judged to benefit

the target group. Rather than being assumed into the overall and on-going ‘pot’, these funds

are ‘added on’ to the central school budget and must reach, and impact on, the education of

those pupils it is intended for. However, as a concomitant to the effective application of the

funds, the quality of education in a school overall is likely to be ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’. In

other words, the pupil premium spend is probably the major lense through which ofsted will

evaluate a school along with attainment and achievement in maths and English plus attendance. The implications for leadership at all levels are clear.

There are two clear messages from this document at this point:

1. The pupil premium is not to be used to prop up the budget, preserve or entrench

existing cultures and systems.

2. The pupil premium is not to be used to deliver innovations or new strategies without

rigorous plans for evaluating these for impact on the quality of the learning of those

pupils for whom the funds are intended.

3. Innovations or new strategies must be dynamic and responsive to evaluation. Judgement of impact needs to be swift and effective.

The report also argues that poverty should not be seen as a predictor of educational failure

as evidence clearly demonstrates success of pupils in eligible for FSM. However, significant

differences exist between Local Authorities (LAs) in the outcomes of pupils eligible for pupil

premium funding. The report concludes a survey by saying two thirds of fifty schools judged

as requiring improvement (RI) were narrowing the attainment gap between children eligible

and not eligible for FSM. Sometimes, however, the progress is inconsistent across different

year groups.

The report lists the various ways in which schools tend to spend the Pupil Premium in the

secondary phase: additional staff, learning mentors, after school, weekend and other

additional sessions, subsidies for attending educational visits. The interesting thing is that

the kinds of activity don’t tend to vary between schools – ‘RI’, ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ – what

does vary is ‘the rigour with which these activities are monitored, evaluated and amended’

(page 10).

Furthermore, in these schools ‘there is a very strong commitment, shared by staff and

governors, to doing everything possible to remove any barriers which might hinder a pupil’s

development. These schools are ambitious, respond to what they know to be good practice

and ensure that their vision for improvement is clear’ (page 11). Plans are flexible as they are regularly reviewed and revised in response to evaluation of impact.

The value of effective governance is noted in this report. In other words, schools need to

find ways of involving governors and enabling them to have access to subject leaders and

their comments on, plans for and evaluation of progress in raising achievement in the

subjects they are responsible for. The progress of pupils eligible for FSM should be a standing agenda item for these discussions.

The final impact of the document is the data for 2013 relating to outcomes at key stage

four. The document demonstrates the current and on-going challenge by stating the gap in

attainment between FSM pupils and non FSM at key stage 4 is 27% (65% and 38%

respectively). Ofsted is clearly aware of patterns across the UK and it is most likely to be the

case that schools are doing better in regions where the challenge of FSM attainment has

been on the agenda for some time and the number of pupils eligible for FSM is

comparatively much higher. For example 51% of pupils eligible for FSM is London achieve

five good GCSEs compared with 32% South West.

Clearly, schools need to have rigorous systems for accountability. You may wish to read my

personal experience of achieving this while headteacher in 2011 in my document Raising

Achievement Through Deep Collaboration at www.petereccles.co.uk. The most important

part of the message is as follows:

‘In our case, a system of accountability was implemented to ensure the achievement of

every pupil in the school would be hauled up into a net that would ensure literally ‘every

child mattered’. Quality assurance planning and routines were established every term. This

process involved engaging middle leaders, senior members of staff and governors in

agreeing a template for providing evidence to demonstrate whether work was achieving, or

on track to achieve, the aspirational aims of the College. This was very successful at all key

stages where tangible evidence of progress was explored and tested. The termly cycle of

quality assurance was integrated into a written policy for achieving consistency. This agenda

for consistency was the basis for a number of core responsibilities including how students

are introduced to topics, how they are assessed, how and when books are marked, the

value and purpose of homework, communication with parents and the mentoring of pupils.

It was particularly pleasing to observe colleagues in their conversations about standards and

the ease with which they discussed the steps required to manage and remove inadequacy.

Even in the early days of quality assurance Ofsted noted the positive impact of this

collaborative and robust approach: ‘Monitoring and evaluation are rigorous and accurate,

and have been successful in identifying and rectifying weaknesses in teaching. Data are

now analysed thoroughly and used to track students’ progress in order to identify slower

progress by individuals or groups, which is then rectified’.