To think that a pupil premium should be paid for children who live in home where none of the parents have qualifications

[ReallyTired]

I think that the education of the parents has a more significant outcome on a child's attainment than income. (Especially as many working poor don't have much more money than those on benefits.)

I feel that children who live in households where no adult has five GCSEs or equivalent should get extra support at school. Often these families aren't entitled to benefits because the parents do work so currently don't get the pupil premium.

It is harder for uneducated parents to support their children with homework than someone with a degree. Better eduated mothers are better at getting their children's needs met as they are often more articulate. For example making sure that statemented child gets what they are legally entitled to. (Getting a child assesed by an ed pych so that the child's dyslexia is spotted.)

Unskilled people often do physically hard work for very long hours for very little money. I believe that a child with unskilled working parents is at a major disadvantage as their parents are time poor as well as cash poor.

Schools still manage to misappropriate ring fenced SEN funding.

The research is hugely problematic as it is very difficult to establish causal links with interventions.

If the Pupil Premium is targeted at children who receive FSM, these children should receive resources that benefit them. There should be no claims of not needing it. Some might benefit from extension work, some from work to raise their attainment up to more of an average level. Some might benefit from free extra curricular activities. Pupil Premium should not be just be lumped in with SEN funding or provide additional TAs to a whole class / school.

Or why not ask the parents of children who receive FSM what they think might benefit their child?

Or why not ask the parents of children who receive FSM what they think might benefit their child?

The people who can answer that question effectively probably didn't need the help in the first place. The whole point is to provide assistance to children whose parents can't provide it, and in most cases that's not about money: PP is tied to FSM not, as has been pointed out repeatedly, because poverty necessarily causes educations disadvantage, but because as proxies for deeper issues of disengagement and poor home support go, it's the least worst of the bad options available.

And, for the 100th time, this isn't about parents of children with SEN who are pushing for resources they know their child needs but can't access for financial reasons. That is a separate problem. There will be children eligible for PP and money through SEN budgets, but a lot of them aren't going to be the kids of articulate, knowledgeable parents who know how to appeal decisions and push LEAs though to tribunals.

In my city, pupil premium has stripped vast amounts out money out of the selective schools (~1% FSM) and swung it to the nearby comps (~30% FSM), whose results have over the past couple of years shot up. That's a success, and the carping about "we need to make sure we give the money to the eligible children in such a way that there's no possibility of wider benefits" seems incredibly dog in the manger. Aside from anything else, pupil premium isn't an individual budget per child, as your comparisons with issues around statementing imply.

If the Pupil Premium is targeted at children who receive FSM, these children should receive resources that benefit them.

And on the whole, they do. They quite often get subsidised or free educational trips or activities, or books they need to own are bought for them, or a TA can be employed who will work directly with a group of children who get FSMs. The only good thing about the way the pp is implemented is that schools can decide how the money is best spent.

If a school does use the money to employ an extra member of staff to do small group work and the small group then includes children who get FSMs and some who don't, I can't see the problem. The target children are benefitting, and so are a couple of others who need help. I find it hard to understand why anyone would begrudge help to a child who needs it just because they aren't on FSMs and because the government decided to use a very blunt instrument to decide who is most deserving of help.

Capsium, you are right in thinking that every target child could benefit from extra money somehow, but so could every child. I don't think any child is more deserving than another, but some do have greater needs than others. Money spent should be based on need and not on ticking a box.

Well said Friday and coldlight I totally agree it's possible to do both.

In fact it is sometimes preferable to include other children alongside the pp children as tbh the last thing anyone wants is to marginalise these kids or mark them out as different.

My best friend's DH earns £100,000 and he has no qualifications at all. No GCSEs, nothing. He was home schooled and works in IT.

Who says I haven't looked at the research cold?

I just believe if funding is targeted at a particular sector it should be spent to benefit that sector.

Otherwise the success of the intervention / provision of resource is questionable. Any success within the sub set of that sector, the ones who do not participate in interventions or receive additional resource, is totally unrelated to how the funding is spent.

Yet because the money is spent in their name, they are still on the receiving end of prejudices regarding their potential.

You need to work within the system to measure it's success or lack of.
Playing the system just masks it's flaws.

When funding is targeted at a particular sector, schools do have to show that it is benefiting that particular sector. It's not as if they just get given the money and are allowed to have nothing to show for it. And if it helps a few extras along the way, then that's a good thing. Not enough of that happens IMO.

It doesn't really matter that much if the success of the intervention is slightly less measurable because other children have benefitted. What matters is that the money makes a difference to children's education, and I think it does.

I just believe if funding is targeted at a particular sector it should be spent to benefit that sector.

Even if everyone has agreed that the targeting is particularly vague? PP isn't intended for children on FSM as an individual budget, it's intended for schools with a high level of FSM amongst their student body to spend on children at risk of falling behind.

A school with a high level of FSM will also have a high level of deprivation amongst children who are not eligible for by £1, or do not claim FSM for a wide range of reasons. The school probably knows who those children are. Are you seriously saying that children who are living in deep poverty with, perhaps, a parent struggling with mental health issues so that filling in the paperwork for FSM is pretty low down their list of priorities, should be denied extra support in school because the PP "isn't for them"? That's not the policy, that's not the intent of the policy, and it's a fairly unethical way to behave anyway.

PP is not statementing. PP budgets are not like statement budgets. They are not tied to individuals. Schools can spend the money on capital projects and on whole-school initiatives. A high level of FSM in a school indicates a school in a deprived area. That's all. Those with long memories will remember "Section 11 money". This is a similar initiative.

Woo it does matter very much if the success of an intervention is less measurable.

This type of practice perpetuates lies.

IMO more funding does not mean a better educational system. Money can corrupt. If there is monetary incentive to label children in a particular way this means some will optimise this opportunity to the detriment of these children's reputation.

Most schools in my LA did not feel that FSM was a good indicator of children's educational needs...

If schools relied less on parental support, in homework, this would level the playing field.

Schools are not attempting to rectify poor home experiences, other services do that.

Those championing interventions for children who receive FSM, which ones do they think are most appropriate?

it does matter very much if the success of an intervention is less measurable.

The purpose isn't to do blinded research, the purpose is to provide help.

This type of practice perpetuates lies.

Get a grip.

If schools relied less on parental support, in homework, this would level the playing field.

How do you propose to prevent engaged parents from working with their children to their children's advantage? If you're engaged and capable, every moment is a teachable moment. Whether or not that surrounds formally set homework is irrelevant. When I was at primary school in the sixties and early seventies, homework was unheard of. That didn't mean it was some pre-lapsarian paradise in which parental education counted for nothing in children's outcomes.

"To the detriment of these children's reputation"?

What exactly do you mean by that? Their reputation in the eyes of whom?

Between us, my husband and I have some very mumsnetty qualifications. Some of our year at school left with not a single GCSE, totally convinced they were thick and learning wasn't for them, despite the efforts of some dedicated staff. They weren't thick. They were carers for family members, rocketing in and out of care (sometimes both), previous school refusers due to bullying, self-harmers, suffering from eating disorders, previously mismanaged SENs (even a good teacher can't fill in five years of falling behind in a year). They left school with low attainment, and if they went to college, they dropped out because it wasn't a supportive enough environment.

Do you seriously believe that my ability to read and my successful efforts to get qualifications don't give my children an advantage? I think that society should make an effort to remedy the mistakes of the past. Should we pretend that the children of yesteryear who were failed by society don't exist? Note I didn't say my peers failed. They were failed by society.

As a friend once said (from personal experience) "this shit is generational".

Those championing interventions for children who receive FSM, which ones do they think are most appropriate?

Having some money to pay for walking boots for kids who want to do DoE. Running trips to universities, museums, art galleries, theatres, the experiences that middle-class parents provide automatically. Providing adults who have the time and expertise to tutor one-to-one or one-to-two. Providing access to decent libraries. Providing access to IT that works reliably. An endless list which boils down to "stuff that advantages kids whose parents have both money and expertise".

The OP is making an entirely sensible suggestion

In the UK 90pc of children with parents who went to university also go to university

Only 10pc of children with parents who didn't go to university end up going to university

Now, what do you think is the reason for this? Uneducated parents lead to uneducated children. It is important that these children get extra support as they are disadvantaged the day they are born

Education is a part of a family's culture. If a child doesn't have that culture of achievement and learning then only the very best will be able to beat their environment and rise to the top

Money can corrupt. If there is monetary incentive to label children in a particular way this means some will optimise this opportunity to the detriment of these children's reputation.

The school doesn't choose to label pp children though - it is determined by their parents' financial circumstances which are verified by external government agencies.

I'm really confused!

Of course you would not prevent parents working with their children. Schools should not dictate this, however.

How do you know the interventions actually help if this cannot be tested?

Help as and when needed, to the best of your abilities is all that should be asked. Unfortunately many interventions fall far short of this and are more about ticking boxes.

As a friend once said (from personal experience) "this shit is generational".

Indeed. We appear to be almost hearing the argument that you shouldn't identify children who are more likely to fail for fear of either stigmatising them or somehow disrespecting their parents.

Speaking as an educated, middle-class parent of bright, NT children, can I say that if I were cynical, such a policy would be the best thing that could ever happen to my children. Pupil premium is tearing money out of my children's schools, and the effect of that is to improve the results (ie, the university and employment prospects) of people in less advantaged settings. I think that's a good thing: the last people on earth who need help from the education system are people like us. But out of pure self-interest, a return to school funding being independent of disadvantage would doubly help my children: the money would move back to their school and disadvantage would be reinforced so that my children would be, in relative terms, even better off than they already are.

I can tell you right now who loses from the PP. The middle classes. Good.

Shoe Schools perpetuate the label by claiming the funding is spent on these children, when it is not entirely, and then using these children's attainment to correlate with the success with the actual intervention.

Depends on your views regarding the success of interventions friday.