The pupil premium: eight ideas for how schools can do more with less.

1. The pupil premium:
eight ideas for how
schools can do
more with less
Louis Coiffait
@LouisMMCoiffait

2. @LouisMMCoiffait 2
NAHT EdgePearson
FreshMinds
Cambridge
TTA
Westminster Council
York/
UCLA
Minister
MP
California
Quick intro

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Quick context
Attempt to summarise EEF/Sutton
Trust and NAO reports in last
24hrs, then read the runes…
Growing commitment to narrow the
attainment gap, 94% of schools now
target support for disadvantaged
students, compared to 57% before it
was introduced

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Quick context
The Pupil Premium (PP) is having an
effect, as 2011-14 data shows;
• 4.7 per cent overall reduction in
attainment gap between
disadvantaged students and their
peers in primary
• 1.6 per cent reduction in
secondary

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Quick context
But “no clear trends” according to
the NAO, it’s still early days to
judge the Pupil Premium
And the gap is still wide e.g. 27.4
per cent in 2014 for English and
Maths A*-C GCSE

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Quick context
NAO

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Quick context
Challenges identifying all
disadvantaged students eligible for
PP support (issues: FSM definition,
PP formula, UFSM, Universal Credit)
75% of school leaders report low-
income working families ineligible
A new ‘data sharing system’ called
for by EEF/Sutton Trust

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Quick context
The Pupil Premium associated with
No government can abandon it, but…

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Quick context
Value for money will be scrutinised more,
£2.5bn spent on 2m PP students this year
Schools should make the most of the freedoms
and support they have
But also share challenges they face e.g.
recruitment and funding – the government does
respond to pressure
Here are eight ideas for what schools can do
(and how the government can help them)

10. 1
•Prove PP spending is focused on disadvantaged students
2
•Collaborate creatively to get the staff needed
3
•Make use of evidence to inform decisions
4
•Demonstrate value for money
5
•Get an external review
6
•Check websites contain all the right information
7
•Turn to… Ofsted
8
•Apply for a Pupil Premium award
@LouisMMCoiffait 10
8 ideas for schools

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1: Focus £ on PP students
NAO found 77 per cent of PP
funding being ‘diluted’ by
being spent on all students
Schools need to show
evidence of ‘prioritised
spending’

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1: Focus £ on PP students
Tough to prioritise funding this way in
austere climate of cuts…
EEF/Sutton Trust found 50% of primary and 44%
of secondary teachers said their schools fund
activities that would otherwise have been cut
due to budget pressures
The NAO found 45% of schools faced real-terms
cuts e.g. 5 per cent real terms cuts to 16
per cent of the most disadvantaged secondary
schools, even with extra PP funding
The Institute for Fiscal Studies found 12%
real terms budget cuts are coming

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1: The London weighting
NAO

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1: Primary funding
NAO

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1: Secondary funding
NAO

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1: Focus £ on PP students
Current funding system is unfair, we
badly need a national funding formula
from the government
Government’s role is to ensure schools
have the resources they need

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2: Collaborate on staffing
Schools can work collaboratively and
creatively to get the staff they need
You know that the single best way to help
disadvantaged students is through great
teachers who can deliver high quality lessons
But where will they come from? Especially in
MFL, physics and maths
Where will the next generation of middle and
senior leader come from?
We face a dip in the number of graduates at
the same time as a surge in student numbers,
as well as an improving economy offering
alternative, better paid-careers

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2: New teachers vs target
The Conversation/DfE

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2: Collaborate on staffing
Schools can work together through
secondments, CPD, mentoring, shadowing,
shared roles and projects
Government urgently needs to do more to
make teaching an attractive, rewarding
career for life

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3: Be informed by evidence
NAO found many schools using ineffective
approaches without challenge for years
(so expect more accountability soon)
Still early days for teaching to become a
truly ‘evidence-informed profession’
Although it’s up from 52% in 2012, still
only 64% of school leaders are using the
EEF toolkit to inform their PP spending
The College of Teaching is in its infancy

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3: Be informed by evidence
Yes every school/class/student is
different
But high performing schools focus on
variation between classes and
systematically test what works for each
of their students
They use evidence to inform both practice
and management decisions
Cycle: Hypothesis – Experiment – Evaluate

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3: How do you decide?
EEF/Sutton

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3: How do you decide?
NAO

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3: Be informed by evidence
Good schools also embed innovation and
change into their teaching and learning,
as well as their management practices
They have a clear idea of what the
evidence says and what they’re currently
testing in their school
Government, Ofsted and others should
trust them more and give them time

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4: Show value for money
The NAO found an over-reliance on ‘high-
cost’ approaches
Consider cost and impact in the Education
Endowment Foundation (EEF) toolkit
https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.
uk/toolkit/

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4: What schools are doing

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4: The EEF toolkit

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4: Show value for money
1:1 tuition (in 71% of schools, ££££/5, +4 months)
vs small groups (£££/5, +4 months)
vs peer-to-peer (25% are, ££/5, +6 months)
What’s the cost/impact of using extra teaching
assistants? 71% of schools do, relatively expensive
££££/5 (£430m spent), not that effective (+1 month)
unless used well
Are you using feedback effectively? (63% of schools
focus on it, can be cheap (££/5) and effective (+8
months), but EEF/Sutton Trust found only 6% of
teachers/leaders prioritise spending on feedback
The government needs to increase the investment in
CPD for both teachers and school leaders

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5: Get an external review
Schools can get external support from an
independent and approved reviewer
See https://www.gov.uk/pupil-premium-reviews
The NAO found that up to Feb 2015, only 7 of
214 approved reviewers were in the South-West
DfE is addressing this shortage, there are
currently 526 reviewers nationwide, including
34 in the South-West

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5: Get an external review
But only 10% of schools have used them so far
Note that 8% of primaries and 21% of
secondaries inspected by Ofsted Sep to Dec 2014
were asked to do so
The government can ensure the quantity and
quality of reviewers meets demand

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6: Check your website
DfE guidance: https://www.gov.uk/what-maintained-
schools-must-publish-online#pupil-premium
You must publish details of how your school spends
its pupil premium funding and the effect this has
had on the attainment of the pupils who attract the
funding. You must include the following:
• your pupil premium allocation for the current
academic year
• details of how you intend to spend your
allocation
• details of how you spent your previous academic
year’s allocation
• how it made a difference to the attainment of
disadvantaged pupils

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6: Check your website
Heath School and Belmont School websites are
listed as helpful examples
The government
can also help
create a climate
of hope rather
than fear, by
using appropriate
Language…

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7: Turn to… Ofsted
NAO found Ofsted was one of the most popular
sources of PP best practice
See the (archived) Ofsted guidance
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/201411241
54759/http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/pupil-
premium-analysis-and-challenge-tools-for-schools
One mention in Jan 2015 Ofsted inspection framework
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-
framework-for-school-inspection
How inspectors use their time during inspections?
55. Inspectors will evaluate evidence relating to the
achievement of specific groups of pupils and individuals,
including those eligible for support from the PP

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8: Apply for a PP award
Find ideas at
http://www.pupilpremiumawards.co.uk
What’s to lose in applying? It costs nothing
but a little time, 600 schools win cash prizes
this year
The process itself should be a helpful one
Hopefully the government will listen to
EEF/Sutton Trust calls for even greater rewards
for schools effectively spending PP funding

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Thank you…