Complain to school? After school club/Pupil premium/Wohm

[Niccelia]

DCs school doesn't run very many after school clubs. As such there is always a scrum for places. Previously this was dealt with by a first come first served system. Everyone got a letter and you couldn't hand it in until 48hrs later. That gave all the parents a fair chance to look at it and get it back to the school.

They've now changed to an online system. It's open from when the letters go out. I tried to book a club when I got home from work at 4.45. All spaces were filled. Basically if you don't physically pick your kids up from school yourself and do it then and there, you aren't getting a place. DS was gutted and so was I tbh as there is no wrap around care at his school and a place at a club means he doesn't need to go to a childminder for 45 mins. Yet the DC whose parents pick them up and presumably don't need childcare are taking the spaces as they can be there and log on instantly to book.

Second issue: bikeability. DS was waving a letter in front of me the second I came through the door and begging me to book him a place. Big surprise, places were all gone. This was 50 mins after school kicked out for the day. They aren't running another course, if you missed out you missed out.

Now not only is DS one of the only kids who bikes to school. He's also one of only two pupil premium kids in his class. I checked the school website and they have a list of all the things they spend pupil premium money on. I think it's an OFSTED requirement and they have to show the money is being spent on targeted PP kids.

Low and behold, Bikeability is paid for with PP money . Yet the two PP kids can't get a space. It was also spent on a SN TA (not for DS), a science programme (not DSs class), councilling (DS has never been), residential trips (we paid in full), music tuition (again paid in full) and non pupil time for the deputy head to do "target marking" for PP kids (presume DS benefits from this)

AIBU to think 1, the online booking is bullshit if you are a working parent and not there to pick your DC up everyday and 2, since the PP kids money paid for the course they should actually be able to go on it?

Having looked again this is what it was spent on last year, presumably DS benefitted from some of this so I think I'll just speak to the head re the booking system?!

Additional teaching time targeted at specific children
Additional learning support
Targeted SEN support and 1:1 in addition to those grant funded
Additional learning support for children with challenging behaviour
Non-teaching Assistant Head time allowing better targeted assessment of the qualifying children
Provision of counselling and support from outside agencies
Forest school activities
Support for day trips, residential trips, base camp costs, resources, music

Pupil premium isn't meant to be spent on the specific children who attract it. When ds got it he got a couple of pieces of free uniform but the rest was just pooled for the School's use.

On the contrary. It is meant to be spent on things that will help narrow the gap in attainment between PP & non PP children & schools have to show how this is being achieved.

PP is most definitely meant to be spent on PP children. There should be evidence of how PP children have benefited from how the money was spent. For example, my school uses the money to employ additional TA's to run interventions. These can be run with a group of children, some of whom may not be on PP but they must include at least one child who is receiving PP.

Regarding the booking thing, this could easily be resolved by not opening the online booking system until 24 or 48 hours after the letters have gone out. If the school have allowed time under the previous system for everyone to have an opportunity to see the letter, there seems no reason why they wouldn't still provide that time. As a teacher who is also a parent, it baffles me why schools often seem to think that there is someone at home to collect children from school every day, attend class assemblies that are always scheduled at the same time/day of the week, drop in to craft activities, meetings etc. The school I teach at is full of working parents, yet it still does this!

Re the booking system, can't they just open it at a later time? Say 8pm which would give enough time for (most) parents hear about it and get to access internet, even if they were still at work.

I am a slack mum, slow to respond to school letters. My kid has never failed to get in the club or activity he wanted to do because, big shock, the school always rush stuff with sufficient places for everyone.

Bikeability, for instance, was run for the whole class and it was a question of the odd kid opting out otherwise everyone did it.

That's what I mean
If PP is £500 per year for my kid it doesn't mean my kid gets £500 of stuff spent on him
It means £500 goes towards projects for kids who need additional support. Which my kid may or may not benefit from directly or indirectly, depending on his needs

the system is definitely unfair on working parents
it should be replies by X date then names out of a hat if oversubscribed
FWIW though, our school managed to provide bikeability for ALL kids in all junior classes, at no cost to parents. Something like that should be available to all.
Most of our out of school clubs are run by external people and paid for though. So there is never usually so much clamour for a place. You can always get into the teacher-led singing club and reading group (oh and the deputy head used to run zumba!)

Yes pp is to help children who need additional support but if a child has attracted x amount of money that doesn't mean the school has to spend x amount of money on that specific child. It is pooled and some of it may be used on things that benefit the majority of pp children. It's possible that some pp children will be flying academically and socially, well behaved and from well off families. What exactly should schools spend their pupil premium allocation on?

Corbyns, yes that's DS. Exactly why I've never looked to see what they spend it on. It's only because of the bikeability I looked.

He was PP, then ever 6, then PP and is now ever 6 again I think!

With all respect then I don't think you need to be complaining that he doesn't benefit from all the pp interventions. The criteria for pp means that a lot of kids who need help will be targeted. But it's not a perfect system. There will be some, like your son, who meet the criteria but don't need any interventions.
That's why the money isn't ringfenced for each particular child though obviously the school are required to show evidence of benefit. I'd just be glad that you can afford school trips and your child doesn't need to access counselling etc.
The booking system does sound like a shambles though. And in a school that has great demand for the after school clubs it will be the same people missing out every time which isn't fair. I would focus your complaint around that.

Talk to your school for goodness sakes.

School are not slick corporate environments. They make mistakes. Talk to them, explain your position, or might all come good.

Why have you paid for things if you don't need to though?

*Pupil premium isn't meant to be spent on the specific children who attract it. When ds got it he got a couple of pieces of free uniform but the rest was just pooled for the School's use.**

Wrong.

My son gets one hour 1-2-1 extra tuition a week. Plus the school pays for one extra curricular activity a term (saves me £64 a term for football). Plus all trips paid for (although I always contribute a bit)

After school clubs aren't supposed to be used as free childcare.

This is interesting...dd's school asks parents to tick the reason they want an ASC place - the only options to tick are either 'childcare' or 'enrichment'. (The ASCs are not free).

Is one prioritised over the other? (All the parents are perplexed by it and no one knows what to tick).

Standard PP is meant to be spent on PP kids, though other kids can 'piggy-back' onto things.

However, the money doesn't have to be equally distributed, so if PP is e.g. £500 then each child doesn't have their own pot of £500. Some children may get more than £500 worth of interventions/help, some less.

What I mean by 'piggy-back', is that if for example a spelling intervention session is help for the primary benefit of 3 PP kids, but they think they can help 7 children in a session, the other 4 could be non-PP pupils.

Holidayhooray that is because your son needs it though. What would be the point in the ops son having 1-1 tuition if he is massively ahead already? The money will be targeted at pp kids as much as possible but for eg if a child has attracted £1000 then the school isn't required to spend £1000 on hat child and not a penny less or more regardless of whether that is what they need.

If they are going to have an on line registration procedure it needs to open at a time when all can access eg Saturday early evening/Sunday morning. But I would argue that on line registration discriminates against those who have no/difficult access to the internet at home - often the students in receipt of pupil premium.

Activities paid for with pupil premium monies should favour access for pp students. One school I know of funded a visiting music teacher and all the slots were taken up by middle class children playing violins....

I think you will find that if you write to the Head copying your letter to the LEA and Ofsted a place will be found for your DS. If the practice that the school adopts results in pp students being excluded they will not get the money any more.

If there are not enough spaces in the clubs then the school needs to be increasing capacity - and until then rotating who gets on them (eg if you did last term cannot next ...)

I disagree with those posters who state that pupil premium should be pooled and used to benefit all. It should provide additional support to those students whose parents are in receipt of certain benefits or forces children as others have stated.

As a classroom teacher, I have to know which of my groups are in receipt of PP and check their attainment in my subject against the other kids.

I also deliver instrumental tuition to 2 PP kids. They are both bright, articulate and cone from close & loving families and they do not require any interventions. Child 1's parents used her PP pot to help with the cost of a foreign exchange trip, her individual lessons with me and the £30 that was left at the end of the year was put towards a grade exam (which had to be taken in school to qualify). Child 2's parents were really anxious to start his lessons before the end of last academic year and asked me to bill them immediately "otherwise we'll lose it".

The OP should absolutely ask how her DS's PP has been used. If he has not benefitted from it, some serious questions need to be asked.

Well there are certainly some things on the list that the ops child will have benefitted from. Are you saying that if 90% of the pp children needed maths intervention it wouldn't be worth doing because of the few who don't and it wouldn't be fair? All the schools I have worked in pool pp money apart from the odd child where they need something individual. There is no legal requirement to spend the amount a child attracts on that child to the penny.

PP funding is supposed to spent on activities to close the gap between PP and non-PP students, but is not necessarily tied to individual students (unlike PP+, which is)

The club booking thing is bonkers, but I think you will be better off separating out these two concerns. There's obviously an overlap between them, but they are different things

Nope, my son doesn't require any intervention.

But the school offers it to all PP children. And I took them up on it.

Well in that case maybe the op should ask that her son gets some counselling he doesn't need so that it's fair?