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.

Nigella

The good try was the implication I hadn't read past the first line of the OP.

thumbnuts how would you find out if the parents were functionally illiterate? Even harder to find out than if they had five GCSEs or equivalent.

The people I know who are wouldn't turn up for a humiliating test!

Xpost nulgirl and curlew

I do think that a threshhold of 5GCSEs might be a bit high. And if parents have got qualifications after that, or later, then again, it might be pointless.
And would both parents have not to have 5GCSEs?
And there will be trouble with some people thinking they are being slurred in some way, as evidenced by this thread!
Actually, thinking about it, that will be the biggest problem of all.

The FSM criteria might also be a crass generalization, but I still think it's a far more relevant judgement of a family's current level of socio-economic disadvantage than how well the parents did thirty years ago in their own schooling.

also so what if the schools get pupil premium, IME this money is just used for eg maintaining the swimming pool or some other top priority, certainly not to any individual pupils' advantage. just saying.

Any evidence for this absurd suggestion?

me not a school qualification to my name i didnt even get my leavers certificate my husband did better though but we both left school at 16, dd1 has all her standard grades all credit and 5 highers and is in her 3rd year of a degree dd2 has a mxture of credits and a general, i think i did an ok job and my children are not disadvantaged in the way you speak, some parents just don't give 2 hoots about their childrens education regardless of their own exam results

Sorry, but no. It’s one of those ideas that sounds good on paper but assumes an army of decent schools and helpless enthusiastic teachers and sencos held back only from educationally supporting disadvantaged children, because they haven’t enough money.

It isn't the truth.

It’s particularly rich when it’s the same schools that failed the parents that get given more and more money.
When they then fail the next generation they're quick to claim it's the material they're given to work with, so handing over more money isn't the answer.

golddigger more advanced qualifications supercede a lack of lower ones to government agencies. Exceptions are private organisations, job agencies and the like- there's a story making the rounds of an agency who refused to put a guy forward for a job requiring GCSE MathsnB, because he had a C. The guy had A-level maths A and a first in his mathematics degree.

encouraging children to learn and be excited and switched on to their education is the answer not throwing £s at schools imo

DfE link - PP definitely introduced in April 2011

Ofsted are all over PP spending like a nasty rash so if schools are spending this money on the swimming pool roof then they are going to be in serious trouble believe me.

Wouldn't it be a good idea to target the support at children who are working at below the expected level nationally?
Or is this too simplistic?

the massive and offensive generalization that people who didn't perform well in their GCSEs at the age of 16 are inherently thick and lazy

Am I the only one to find this outrage absurd? If grades don't distinguish the "thick and lazy" from the rest, in general, albeit with some exceptions, what are they for? Isn't this precisely the job they are designed to do?

I didn't go to school in the UK, does the UK school system use a random number generator to create grades?

really Tired one of my dds has a learning difficulty i had no problem articulating it with school and to get her the help she needed if i hadn't opened my mouth and harped on and on she would not have got the help she needed in secondary and passed ALL her exams, you are assuming people with degrees are the only type of parents who can open their mouths to get their children supported learning at school, (there are no satements in scotland I dont think )

It was ok to use income as an indicator of educational need before the recession hit the naice families?

That is the best comment ever made on this topic.

"the massive and offensive generalization that people who didn't perform well in their GCSEs at the age of 16 are inherently thick and lazy"

Can you point out where anyone has made such a generalization?

It is a fact that in general children from poor families and from families where the parents! particularly the mother, have low educational attainment do less well than children from better off families, with parents particularly mothers, with higher educational attainment. Not all of them. But that is what happens in general. And, as that is a fact, why would you not want to address it?

YABU, OP. There are plenty of people out there who don't have a myriad of qualifications, for plenty of reasons, who are highly intelligent and perfectly capable of helping their children through knowledge and common sense that don't necessarily equate to grades on a bit of paper.

Me, on the other hand, I'm nearly at the end of my PhD. If you asked me to do a standard grade/GCSE maths paper, I can assure you I'd be screwed. Whereas someone who left school early and has used maths in their work would likely be much better placed.

"Wouldn't it be a good idea to target the support at children who are working at below the expected level nationally?"

Guess what socioeconomic group many such children fall into.........

how can something 'in general' be a fact?

It was ok to use income as an indicator of educational need before the recession hit the naice families?

That is the best comment ever made on this topic

Seconded.

As an aside, does anybody know what will be happening to Pupil Premium funding, now that KS1 children will all get FSM from next September?

"It was ok to use income as an indicator of educational need before the recession hit the naice families?"

Not quite sure what this means?

"how can something 'in general' be a fact?"

Easily. It means that this is something that usually applies but there are, obviously, people being what they are, exceptions. Have a look at the stats for your school. Look at the "narrowing the gap" figures. Then come and say that in general, poor children don't do as well as better off ones.