AIBU to think there is a stigma attached to taking up Free School Meals?

[cingolimama]

Would really value MNers experience here. DH and I have had a pretty disastrous year financially (redundancy for DH, drying up of contracts for me). However we are both working hell for leather to turn this around. In the meantime we're eligible for FSM, which frankly would be a big help. I also know that it helps the school gain a Pupil Premium.

But I'm a bit nervous about this. I don't want my daughter to be "targeted for help" as I believe anyone benefiting from FSM is (but perhaps I'm being idiotic - DD could surely use a booster in maths dept.) I also don't want any social stigma attached to this. It's a mixed school socially, but the majority is very middle class. Has anyone had any negative experience of taking this up? Or AIBU and it will all be fine?

friday: It is the right word for it. I suspect you wouldn't like any synonyms either.

Toys, it's jargon. It has specific meanings in specific fields, and means very little outside those fields. Sociologists think that using Foucault's concept of "enonces" (even more pretentious with the accents, I think) makes them sound fashionably French. Linguists, who got there first, then get pissed off because they can't do discourse analysis without people thinking they've come over all post-structuralist. If you can't get your idea over without repeatedly using jargon specific to your field, you should perhaps try look more closely at your lexis.

Wow, you win, friday!

I like enonces too.

So, what do you do to prevent fsm children from failing? Do you give them extra homework just in case?Do teachers not react to changes in individual children's performance early enough to make a difference, anyway? Or are non-fsm children
"allowed" to fail, because they are not on the "predictions list"?

Apart from anything else, schools and teachers are measured, among other things, by how much progress the children make. So no, children are not "allowed to fail" because they are not on the predictions list. But children who are more at risk of failing for whatever reason, need to have measures put in place to support them. I just cannot begin to understand why this is considered a bad thing.

Or are you saying that we should wait until year 2, say, when they do their first SATs tests and say "oh, some of the children seem to be not doing as well as the others, I wonder why that is, and what we should do about it".......

I would be rather worried if the SATs really were the first opportunity for teachers to see if a child's academic performance was beginning to fall. I would think that assignments/homework, other exams, general attitude in class, rising number of unexplained/authorised absences would also be good indicators of a downwards slope.

I would like to think that any measures taken with a fsm receiving child beginning to exhibit worrying behaviour/results would be implemented with a non fsm receiving child in a similar situation. So, my point is, why tie pp to fsm and not overall school performance, using figures already easily available? But, as I've been told, it's totally impractical and ivory tower thinking . Ok, then.

"So, my point is, why tie pp to fsm and not overall school performance, using figures already easily available"

Listen very carefully,I will say this only once.

Because children on FSM are significantly more likely fail to reach their potential than other children. This is an incontrovertible, academically sound, peer reviewed, fact. And if you look at overall school performance, it might look as if it's doing really well, but be badly failing its vulnerable cohorts.

One of the points I made earlier was that the schools should also be able to access funding (easily and quickly) for any children beginning to fail whether on fsm or not. This, ON TOP of the funding given to schools on their general performance (which in practice would probably mean that schools in deprived areas with a lot of fsm receivers would receive more funding, but it would also mean that schools where performance levels are low for reasons other than poverty would also receive help).

Listen vaeery carefully, I will only say zis once! Sorry, couldn't reziist..

Generally children on free school meals and children in low income working families live in similar areas: Council or ex council estates! Schools often spend the pp money in ways that benefit the entire class. For example if the school puts an extra TA in reception then every child will benefit. Sometimes giving the naughty or less intelligent children more attention/ resources means that bright children can get on with their work.

Schools may spend the money on high quality INSETs on improving marking or the teaching of reading or anything else.

"(which in practice would probably mean that schools in deprived areas with a lot of fsm receivers would receive more funding, but it would also mean that schools where performance levels are low for reasons other than poverty would also receive help)."

Failing schools already recieve extra help. My children's school is under a local authority improvement plan. The first thing the LEA did was to replace both the head and his deputy. Good schools require good leaders, otherwise the extra money would be squandered.

" I would think that assignments/homework, other exams, general attitude in class, rising number of unexplained/authorised absences would also be good indicators of a downwards slope."

I think you said upthread that your child/ren isn't/aren't yet of school age. That would seem likely, given you appear to believe that YR and Y1 are filled with assignments, homework and other exams which might be used for formative assessment. If there's going to be money attached, that assessment needs to be standardised, as otherwise canny schools will simply say that everyone is behind, and the history of early years standardised testing is not happy.

Let's try again: I asked for an efficient mechanism to assess potential academic shortfalls in early years, which means YR and Y1. FSM works well for that, as parents can and do claim it from the day their children start school (estimates vary as to takeup, but they're all high). It's standardised, it's difficult (not impossible, but difficult) for individual schools to game (about the most they can do is encourage people who are eligible to claim) and the assessment mechanism is cheap, reliable and in place. You're proposing, in place of that, exams and a standardised system of assessment for academic progress. In YR and Y1. The return of KS1 SATS, perhaps.

I thought most people who'd thought about early years education were of the opinion that there was too much testing? If you think the stigma of FSM is too much for your liberal conscience, do you think testing children in Y1 and then marking some of them as needing extra help on the basis of those tests is likely to be less stigmatising? Seriously? Do you think that, say, publishing figures for the number of children eligible for this assistance on a per-school basis would be less divisive that the published numbers for FSM? Why? Schools can't be held to have failed on the basis of their FSM numbers, but they could, and would, be held to have failed if the numbers eligible for targeted help on this basis rose.

"schools should also be able to access funding (easily and quickly) for any children beginning to fail whether on fsm or not."

Apart from the "easily" part, that's statementing. And statements have at least two problems which would equally befall a similar scheme that was also "easy".

1. Anecdotally from people working in primary, some parents realise that statements are in their child's interests, especially if as well as resources they also include a recommended secondary school, and therefore are very willing to work with the school to obtain one. Other parents either feel criticised or are worried about social services involvement, and resist or at least do not work with the school. There are no prizes for guessing which of those groups are, in general, the articulate middle classes.

1. Again, anecdotally, but from people who handle appeals, articulate middle class parents take refused statements to appeal, sometimes supported by specialist lawyers, and often win. Even if the less a&mc parents get the stage of a formal application, they are less likely to appeal and much less likely to win.

So if you put in place a system where children are assessed and resources are made available based on an application made by the school, backed by the teachers and the parents, then it is highly likely that the money will flow in precisely the opposite direction to which PP based on FSM flows. This isn't a zero-sum game, but the education budget is finite, and anything which balances the ability of the middle classes to game the system is to be welcomed.

I was FSM as were 90% of my school friends. TBH we laughed at the kids who either PAID to eat what we got for free or had to eat their ridiculously small and cold packed lunch outside in the playground.

We used to line up with the others and tell the lady at the till our names and that was it, so no one knew unless we told them.

And we used to get seconds.

"Failing schools already recieve extra help. My children's school is under a local authority improvement plan."

And the resources available to deal with school that go into a category or into full special measures are considerable. I'm not sure what any of this does better than just using FSM as a coarse metric.

If someone proposed extra funding for children who appear to be at risk of failing but who aren't in receipt of PP via FSM and aren't on some sort of IEP, one can reasonably ask "such as who?" If they've not been detected by an economic measure, nor detected by classroom teachers, how is this new funding going to be allocated? Similarly, if the funding were at school level, it would be for schools that are "failing" but aren't under an improvement plan, in a category or in special measures. Again, one can ask "where are these schools?", and ponder how we'll find them if neither Ofsted not floor targets haven't.

It wouldn't have any effect on the way I thought of you or your family. For completeness though, I confess that I do tend to judge how likely a school is to be 'good' based on the percentage of pupils qualifying for FSM.

I have read a lot of the debate above but not all - just want to say I know that my crude analysis will not always represent reality; that is why at a personal level this fact wouldn't bear on any relationship I had with someone.

friday: I would assume that teachers can see children at risk of failing, through other things than formal assessment, e.g. general behaviour/attitude to classroom work. But, I could be wrong. As you rightly point out, I have no personal experience of the school system yet.

I think that schools should be able to secure funding without "statementing". PP seems to just be a way of getting around that problem, and that is simply not right. If pp is merely used to created a pool of money to be used for all children regardless of fsm, then surely that pool should and could be created in other ways without the need of making an official, automatic connection of poverty with underachievement? I see how it is an easy way to do things, but it doesn't sit well with me. I have no fully formed solution here, since I'm not an actual expert, but I can see room for improvement, and if I were a government advisor I'd look into this in more detail. As I'm not, I think I'll just go to bed now and dream of unicorns, fairies and the like.

Toys is it nice up in lalaland?

It's all very well to be a liberal academic, with no personal or practical experience of either fiscal policy making, data analysis or grass roots education. its fine to theorise some utopian ideal with little or no understanding of the socio economic factors that can impact on a child's attainment

But ... you know, actually, I've nothing left to say that hasn't been said.

Yep - you must be right. I'm sure the bigger picture doesn't count if we can just muddle along somehow - after all, change is just too hard. Neither should we ever have a right to discuss, or have an opinion on, anything without "grass roots" experience or fully formed and costed (right down to the last penny) alternatives to current policies, which are known for not being perfect. I understand and will now retreat to my ivory tower rented and rather cramped accommodation leaving you experts to it. [cat's bum mouth face]

I think one of the problems with this thread is that some people aren't accepting/don't know that the correlation between poverty/disadvantage and under achievement is not made up. It's real, tested, peer reviewed, incontrovertible. And it's nothing to do with poor children being stupid . It's to do with a multitude of factors. Which I could go into if people insist.

Any theory which does not accept that as a basic premise is destined to fail.

But you're not expounding a "bigger picture", you are simply ignoring irrefutable research because it doesn't fit with your liberal ideals

And not one of us believes education policy is perfect (laughable)

In my primary school we had to say if we were having Sandwiches, hot dinners or FSM every day during the register! No one cared though

In my secondary school I remember being jealous of my friend with FSM as I had to take sandwiches and she was able to get chocolate doughnuts

I never, ever, said that, curlew. I have been talking about the bigger picture, principles and the psychology of labelling - possibly in a foreign language. Ah, forget about it..

I work in a secondary school and day-to-day all kids have a lunch card that parents load money onto and fsm cards look the same and are swiped in the same way. The only time it's an issue is on school trips - lunches are provided but kids usually bring a packed lunch and don't want the brown bag fsm even though it's nice food imo. Teachers end up eating it - or they get thrown. We only eat it because it send like such a waste.

I do not refute the research. At all. But I get it - I'm laughable with my principles and psychological theories. Absolutely and completely deluded.