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.

AFAIK the maternal educational achievement theory has been re-thought has it not?

If only...

What riles me about the OP's OP is that she's advocating individual support for children of parents with less than 5GCSEs, as if it's a set in stone SEN.

The pupil premium, as it stands, is not targeted in this way. Some schools may choose to spend it on targeted literacy projects or additional TA support. Some may use it to stock a library. Some may perceive, particularly in those isolated rural areas with no amenities and poor public transport, that the money is best spent on helping their pupils socially, with after school clubs. Or, if pupils appear to be turning up to school hungry, then by providing a heavily subsidised breakfast club. In a concrete jungle, with no safe outdoor spaces for children to play in, then keeping sports facilities up to scratch is a reasonable priority. Ditto a calming green space, or a vegetable garden. Anything to make school a safe haven and a good place to be, rather than a dreaded obligation to be ducked out of, at the first opportunity.

Oh FFS.

My DP doesn't have any GCSE's. Or O Levels. Or any other qualification. He earns more than most people I know. Can read and understand an architects drawing. Builds and designs complex, multi million pound jobs. Successfully negotiates mahosive contracts. Has his own company and employs between 3 to 15 men at any one time.

I am sure he will be more than pleased to hear that because he doesn't have the magic 5 GCSE's (for what they are worth, which is very little in my opinion) that he is incapable of helping with homework. Or supporting our DC in any way that they need.

I agree that perhaps the pupil premium doesn't always get to where it should. But I don't think assessing parents qualifications is the way to get it to children who may benefit.

I'm a teacher, and I'm pretty sure that maternal education theory is right too

My ils don't have an o level between them. They are deeply suspicious of people who read too many books or are academic. Dh ended up at Cambridge. Sometimes you react against your background - can make you hungrier for success.

Oh FFS. My DP doesn't have any GCSE's. Or O Levels. Or any other qualification. He earns more than most people I know.

Equally, I know someone with a PhD whose children are in receipt of PP, because she's not been able to work full time for health reasons and her arse of a husband left her with two small children. So with those two anecdotes (the unqualified man with a lot of money who's good at helping with homework, and the qualified woman with no money who's good at helping with homework) we can shut down the entire scheme, I'd say.

I would like to think teachers hold less pre-conceptions regarding the potential for children's educational achievement, regardless of background.

All this sounds like another version of 'blame the parents' to me.

It is the education system, by en large, which is charged with the responsibility of educating the Nation's children. The education these children are given should genuinely meet their needs, instead of using 'deprivation' arguments to blame shift when faced with poor achievement.

While I don't think that the idea behind the OP is meant badly (to provide extra support in schools to children whose parents are not able to support them at home), I think that the criteria the OP chose for deciding which children should be targeted are all wrong.

Helping children with their education has more to do with wanting to do so and having the time to do so than with diplomas, certificates and degrees.

Bit late to the party on this, but someone far more articulate than me earlier on pondered how an ill-educated buffoon of a parent (my wording) would manage 'complex admin systems' and communicating effectively with their child's teachers and so on.

I am mildly educated and went on to have a mildly successful career in a field that I am not qualified to work in. I followed an old fashioned career progression path, by which I mean I started at the bottom and worked up, I didn't fly in through a window with wings made out of a degree certificate. No one in my family has been to University. I was desperate to go a few years afterwards but my colleagues urged me to reconsider. They were sitting doing the same job as me for the same pay, after all.

I spent several years in the profession and had to learn how to execute flowery Corporate-speak speeches at the drop of a hat. I had to argue vehemently with people that frightened me and I had to write long poncetastic missives that didn't make any particular sense but sounded nice.

I do have the skills that poster was talking about but I am completely confused as to why I would ever need them in the duration of my child's education. The education of most children is not a battlefield, surely. My own parents, education status completely irrelevant in my eyes, didn't fight any battles for me. I just got on with it. They certainly didn't help me with my homework.

This isn't about education. It's a bit more sneery than that. God forbid the rabble breeds. That's what the title of this thread should read.

"The education these children are given should genuinely meet their needs, instead of using 'deprivation' arguments to blame shift when faced with poor achievement."

It's not about shifting blame. It's about finding out why some groups underachieve and doing something about it.

curlew It is not. It is about getting extra funding. IMO.

GCSEs do not ascertain whether someone is "thick" or "lazy". They measure attainment. That's quite a different thing. Due to the pressure on schools, there's far more emphasis on making all the students, even the poor ones, pass. If a child doesn't get 5 C's, I'll bet there's fundamental problems, such as SEN, or a home situation.

Their precursors, the O-level and CSE, demonstrated whether your family were middle-class, to be honest. The situation today shouldn't be muddied with the circumstances of yesteryear.

My husband is fairly certain that none of his bottom set year 11 are "thick or lazy"... Unsupported, dealing with mental health issues, and a myriad of other issues, yes

Dh has a degree from Cambridge, I have two degrees, we are a pay check away from the food bank. We get no benefits (not even 'working' one) . Where do we fit in?

"Bit late to the party on this, but someone far more articulate than me earlier on pondered how an ill-educated buffoon of a parent (my wording) would manage 'complex admin systems' and communicating effectively with their child's teachers and so on. "

Why on earth would you choose those words?

Confident, articulate, educated parents are far more likely to be able to engage effectively with school, or indeed with the police, hospital or any other "authority" figure than less confident, less articulate less educated ones. That's not calling anyone an "ill educated buffoon". It's stating a fact. This is at least as much the fault of the "authority" figure as it is of the individual concerned.

"doing something about it" includes getting extra funding.

*mrsjay Exactly!
I have fought for my boy from before I even met him. Dealing with social workers and teachers and psychologists, medics and just about every professional you could think of.

Who was right?

Me, that's who.

With my pathetic O levels.*

well i am not sure how you managed alll that did you articulate it well i hope so.

John Lennon had it right..?

"doing something about it" includes getting extra funding.

and not spending it on what it is meant to be spent on.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/1862438-Teachers-do-not-adhere-to-Statemented-1-to-1-support-do-not-believe-in-sub-levels-make-APP-assessments-up-How-much-of-what-parents-are-told-by-schools-about-teaching-is-a-box-ticking-exercise

who do you class as articulate and confident and educated curlew and what level do people need to be to be able to deal with authority somebody who is well educated or somebody who is able to string words together ?

Slightly baffled by this thread. The general consensus appears to be that having parents with no educational qualifications has no relationship to a child's likely educational achievement, that the qualifications you obtain bear no relationship to your intelligence or how hard you worked at school, that having an extra adults willing and able to give additional one-to-one support at home is not desirable because they should be left to get in with it, and that the middle classes are horrified by the thought of their children getting extra free benefits.

Presumably a lot of people on MN have achieved a lot educationally despite their parents being broke as well, so does that mean the current pupil premium stigmatises poor people and should be abolished because poor children can do just as well as rich ones?

I don't think the OP's plan is workable, or necessary, as it happens, but I don't see why trying to find a plausible proxy measure to target educational resources is quite such a sin.

The question MrsSippie, (and it's a real question because I don't know the answer), is whether your DCs are more or less in need of additional school support than the child at the next table whose parents scraped 6 GCSEs between them but are earning enough not to qualify for FSM.

The trouble with debates like this on MN is that by the very nature of being in this thread, you are interested and engaged in your child's education.

Not all parents are, I'm certain all parents want their children to do well, but that's different to actually being able to make it happen.

Ofsted's focus may focus on expected progress at the moment and be chasing schools results right across the ability spectrum, but they weren't a year or two ago. No one gave a flying fuck if many DCs got an D or an E if you weren't going to get a C who cared.

This isn't new, it goes back 30 and more years, no one cared what my DSIS got in the last year of CSEs. No one cared what lower tier GCSE students got either.

They got given the worst teachers and if there was bad behaviour and bullying, not a lot was done.

With the best will in the world, now as parents, many of these forgotten pupils have a great deal of difficulty respecting and interacting with schools.

Their children are at a disadvantage regardless of household income.

thebigjessie - no idea how you'd test for it short of visiting every parent of every child in the school and asking them to fill in a short form while you were there, something that no one has the funding for, I'm sure!

I certainly wouldn't advocate calling them in for a test of their literacy.