Pupil premium funding never spent on my child.

[curlykaren]

My son has just gone into year 5 primary. Throughout his primary years he has attracted pupil premium funding to the school as my income as a single parent is low. I've found out that this year the school are holding mandarin language classes for children of mandarin/bilingual households. I am really good friends with one of the Mum's who has a son in these extra language classes. Her financial and family situation is vastly different to mine, her son doesn't attract pupil premium funding to the school. Over the years my son has had 6 Lego therapy sessions, one book and two trips (to free venues-museums). AIBU to be really fucking pissed off that my son doesn't benefit, in any meaningful way, from this funding when meanwhile the school are offering these extra language classes? If your child attracts the pupil premium funding to their school please share with me what the school offer to enhance their education? AIBU in asking the school how they are funding these classes?

Well depending on how often lego therapy is, if it's with an actual therapist (or 2?) that could soon tot up.

We don't get it now, but when my son was a pre-school they used the money to get a computer and related learning games for his pre-school classroom - if he wanted to use the computer in his session he was always allowed to use it.

I care for LAC and PEE money spent on private tutor who comes to our home 3 times each week to teach English, Maths, Science. He also gets online access to Maths website and other bits and pieces we ask for cricket coaching scheme to build confidence and team work skills. Anything left school keeps for general use.

I did not understand this about PP when my 2 DC got this for the 6 years until I was asked to pay for a £500 school trip and another mum told me she didn’t pay because her child was PP. It turns out unless you actively knew about it and made a point of asking for it, they just never told you anything of where the money went and didn’t pay trips. So I got PP for the D.C. and paid all the trips.

I then asked the School How my 2 DC had benefitted from their PP over 6 years and they suddenly offered me half off the trip and told me it went towards iPads (don’t actually mind this so much in principal) but the whole time my DD2 was really struggling with maths and that year all the year 6 kids did terribly in their SATS especially maths. Overnight the head resigned and the new head announced PP was going to be spent on extra after school lessons for kids struggling and subsidised trips to boost their learning

It is statutory that how PP funding has been spent and what progress the children have made due to the funding is displayed on the school's website. Why not start by looking on there?

My DD too "receives" pupil premium that is never spent on her
I agree, it is totally fucked up system

The money isn't intended to be spent on individual pupils at all, your daughter doesn't personally receive these funds.

The money is paid to the school in recognition of the proven fact that where more children are on low incomes, the school will have more problems across the board.

They money isn't intended to be spent on your child, while other children in families with what's considered to be a 'normal' level of income are excluded and disadvantaged - rather it's intended to minimise and smooth the negative impact that having children on a low income in a school can bring. It's intended to be used to help all children to be brought up to acceptable educational standards.
It's a completely entitled expectant view that your child should expect to receive any more than other children simply because you don't have an average income.

Seems to be a bit hit and miss in my experience. With oldest child it paid for a ta to do group nurture sessions. I’ve had half the money off an expensive residential trip and he had at primary 1-2-1 literacy support. He has many issues so I think the money was spent wisely on trying to get him up to average attainment. With my other children I’ve always paid for trips and swimming and they haven’t had any individual interventions as they don’t academically need it.

After paying for all trips, suddenly this year I was told I didn’t have to pay for swimming as pp covered it, my child has now been offered school transport in the mornings and when my 2nd oldest started secondary last yr they gave him a pack containing scientific calculator and stationary because he gets pp funding(very clumsily applied as by the second week in we’d already bought the stuff he was given as we hadn’t been informed so seemed a bit of a waste of money as now he has a pencil case full of stuff he already has. He’s off on a school trip soon and the invoice has been available on parent pay for a month, I was waiting for dp to get paid before paying it and literally 2 days before ds got a letter to say as pp funded we don’t have to pay-to me that smacks of hoping people all pay and only offering pp at the last minute if they haven’t paid.

Pupils with EAL attract additional funding for the school. It’s not related to income, and is separate from PP. Is it conceivable that this money, not PP, has funded these sessions.
As others have said, every school has to publish the level of PP they get and how it’s spent. Often it’s spent ‘invisibly’, ie support in class, interventions, etc, which you might not hear about or be aware of. Your child might also not realise that, for example, small group work, is an intervention. Although £x is awarded per child with PP, schools don’t have to prove they’ve spent that for each child. It goes into a pot and schools decide how it benefits all PP pupils. But schools are absolutely accountable for how they spend it.

I asked our secondary school to use ours to subsidise guitar lessons, because our primary school did this. They were more than happy. Otherwise, I'm happy for the rest to be used as the school see fit.
Primary school also offered discount on the residential trip from PP funding, which was helpful.

He’s off on a school trip soon and the invoice has been available on parent pay for a month, I was waiting for dp to get paid before paying it and literally 2 days before ds got a letter to say as pp funded we don’t have to pay-to me that smacks of hoping people all pay and only offering pp at the last minute if they haven’t paid

Whereas to me, it smacks of parents having children they can't afford and waiting until the last minute to be offered the trip at everyone else's expense.

Snork well, you’re just lovely, aren’t you? You know that sometimes people’s circumstances change sometimes? Why should a child miss out because the parents are flat broke?

Most of my family are teachers. My understanding is that PP is taken as a whole and put across to benefit the whole group of kids within a year group.

However, if you know your child is as yours is PP. I’d be expecting to see the school spending this on the benefit of your own child. Not a few ethnically different children that are not related to PP. The school may have a separate policy for languages and engagement and this could be a coincidence.

I would be looking to ask the Head, your child’s teacher and School Governers where PP is spent and what is being given to your child to bring your child’s grading up.

You may find that your PP is spent on or put towards the cost of support in normal lessons with the Teaching Assistant. School budgets are tighter than Teresa May’s face after a meeting with the EU.

If your really not happy with things, then I suggest you continue dialog with the school or put yourself forward and become a governor and step into the school system and really help your child’s and others development

I don’t have an issue with using PP across the school but it has to be inclusive or worthy of the cost in a grander sense, all kids benefit from new IT equipment but only a few from mandarin.

I was mostly irritated by the use of PP for a lot of sports clubs when the school was failing kids for maths. I think it was short sighted

As above, I suspect the costs for the Mandarin sessions are met by EAL funding, not PP. this is completely separate.

Since 2016, the amount of money each EAL pupil attracts is determined by the LEA and varies from £47 per pupil to £4,500 per pupil, depending on area. It is not income-related.
If you had, say 6 pupils from mandarin-speaking backgrounds in a school, and funding for those pupils, it would be a fair use of that funding to provide mandarin lessons. (Anyone with any experience in this area would be aware that being literate in your first language improves your fluency in your second. EAL isn’t about supporting kids to speak/read/write English only.)

@snorkfavour well you are charming aren’t you! I had full intention to pay, just near the cutoff date for payment as it made sense for our family budget to pay when dp got paid. Seems a bit mean if pp pupils parents pay then at the last minute they offer it free.

As for people having children they can’t afford, life changes and sometimes things happen that you would never have foreseen, in our case I no longer receive maintainance form ex partner as he Is no longer working-because he’s terminally ill. So yes our family budget has reduced, although dp works all the hours under the sun to try and counteract the change.

@snorkfavour so the fact that state schools expect pupils to pay for very expensive trips despite low income pupils attracting funding to cover these sort of costs means parents should not have had children? What about those where a parent has died, or become disabled or where the child is disadvantaged and the parents don’t either have or prioritise the money for a school trip? When my son was in year 6 he wasn’t allowed to go on the school camp (Sen and too difficult...) and there was 1 boy who’s parents couldn’t afford it so he just had to attend school alone all week. The trip was £420.

This is on our school website. With it is a chart that shows the gaps in reading, writing and mathematics between PP pupils and non-disadvantaged pupils when in reception, then again at the end of year 2. The gaps reduce significantly.

I see PP payments as the school's money to use to bridge the attainment gap, it's not my child's money and there will be pupils who need additional support who don't qualify for PP. The pot should benefit all who need it IMO. So long as the school continue to do well with closing that gap there's nothing for me to query regarding how the money is spent.

The pupil premium is additional funding for publicly funded schools in England.

It’s designed to help disadvantaged pupils of all abilities perform better, and close the gap between them and their peers.

Pulled from gov website

So very clear that it’s not for the individual child.

Although I have to say my children have very much individually benefited from it (trips etc paid for)

My sons schools website doesn’t say how it’s helped PP pupils in particular, or closed the gap at all, should they be thinking about this / should I ask about this? They also don’t have a PP coordinator so no idea who id ask!

I’m happy about the way they spend the money though in principle I think, as it goes on TAs for each classroom.

I’m just worried about how I deal with the changing relationship between me / DS and the school as he finally becomes a PP pupil.

I’m scared to draw attention to it... I thought he was on PP last year you see, and he wasn’t. Last September I was asking about it and unsure how to go about it, and asked the school whether I applied or the school did etc. I was really worried as I can’t afford to pay for school meals but the school won’t let anyone bring a packed lunch so you HAVE to pay for the lunches, which is a nightmare to be honest. Anyway, they suddenly stopped asking for payment for the meals on ParentMail, and I stupidly thought that meant DS had got free school lunches (& therefore was on PP as I hadn’t realised it meant anything else).

Fast forwards to now, when I realise that no, DS wasn’t on PP and now I’ve applied for it so he will he soon, but it must have been a mistake on ParentMail. Basically I’m scared that if I make a fuss of DS being on PP now, they’ll realise there was a mistake last year and ask me to pay back all the money for the lunches, which quite frankly I can’t pay.

I feel so bloody stupid.

Ok I think I should probably add that I am not ‘having children I can’t pay for’ or benefit thieving scum etc etc.

I’m seriously ill with something I’m not going to get better from. I didn’t know I was going to become ill and I didn’t know my life was going to fall apart. So after 6 years of trying to hold it together, working more & more part time from my bed, I’m finally too ill to work, savings are gone, and life is really bloody difficult.

Sorry, just felt I had to explain why ds is on PP, and why we can’t afford anything.

It is a sad reflection that you feel the need to justify pp

I’m finally too ill to work, savings are gone, and life is really bloody difficult.

I’m none of those things. And my children receive PP

@snorkfavour so the fact that state schools expect pupils to pay for very expensive trips despite low income pupils attracting funding to cover these sort of costs means parents should not have had children? What about those where a parent has died, or become disabled or where the child is disadvantaged and the parents don’t either have or prioritise the money for a school trip? When my son was in year 6 he wasn’t allowed to go on the school camp (Sen and too difficult...) and there was 1 boy who’s parents couldn’t afford it so he just had to attend school alone all week. The trip was £420

@mightymousie, yes, there'll always be parents who find finances strained due to really serious and genuine problems like you mention of course, but that wasn't OP's question. The Op states that the school has helped with minor trips anyway. The trips that some schools have are just too expensive for many families and not just those classed as 'low income' families. What about all those who fall just outside the low income threshold? They won't even be benefitting from free or reduced housing, free or reduced council tax and in may cases other help, like tax credits etc. Even people earning over 50K now don't receive child benefit and with the cost of a mortgage they can too struggle with the cost of trips for one child. I think that the cost of school trips should be capped in the state sector anyway. I seem harsh to you and people who say some parents have fallen on hard times due to illness/disability/marriage break-ups etc are correct of course, but there are also so many people who keep on having children when they simply can't afford it and then expect the state (ie, other parents) to pay so that their child isn't disadvantaged in any way. I think that's entirely wrong.

The Op was bemoaning the fact the pupil premium hadn't been spent on her child individually and I was pointing out that it isn't intended to be spent on one child while all the others are disadvantaged. It might cover the annual salary of a TA who would be employed helping lots of children, including those who aren't from a poorer background. The idea was initially intended to help schools in more disadvantaged areas, recognising that these schools often have far more to deal with and the money is intended to be pooled and used as a whole. Obviously a child whose school offers help groups and learning support wouldn't exclude a child who needed help simply because his/her parents weren't from the low income category, imagine how awful this would be. When a school receives a high income from the pupil premium, every single child in the school suffers the effects of being in a deprived area, it doesn't just hit the specifically identified 'low income' children at all.

ANutAboveTheBreast puts it perfectly in her post along with an attachment I see PP payments as the school's money to use to bridge the attainment gap, it's not my child's money and there will be pupils who need additional support who don't qualify for PP. The pot should benefit all who need it IMO. So long as the school continue to do well with closing that gap there's nothing for me to query regarding how the money is

All I'm saying is that the PP isn't just there for the named individuals to receive books and treats that others don't receive, so the OP probably won't see any extra benefits from it. What she will see though, is a school trying to do it's level best for all pupils, regardless of their income.

Some parents are lucky enough to receive extra help with trips and I personally think it's unfair to those parents who also have hardly any disposable income but an apparently larger income on paper. With any trip, I think that any parent should be entitled to ask for help and if the trip can't go ahead with it due to high numbers asking for help, so be it.

We have no idea what peoples personal circumstances are including abused women with high income partners and even simply children whose parents have a good income but couldn't care less about what happens to their children, they exist more than you'd like to believe.

ALL pupils should be entitled to exactly the same benefits in school, regardless of how the parents situation appears to be on the surface, because you never know what a family or child is facing, in my opinion.

also, @WellThisIsShit Ok I think I should probably add that I am not ‘having children I can’t pay for’ or benefit thieving scum etc etc

Obviously, some cases where families need financial help are entirely genuine and these are the people who the benefit system is intended to help, but I still believe that your children shouldn't receive more benefits in school than any others. All children should be entitled to extra learning assistance and help with school trips etc. Why should your children be helped more than others when you don't know their individual background? What about parents who don't give a damn and refuse to pay for anything much (yes, I've seen that many times)? Don't their children deserve to benefit from PP as well? The govt intention and stance is that they do.

Just because you're in a genuine situation, does that mean that everyone whose school receives PP is? I know of a family with three young children where both parents sit at home all day playing on their xbox because they 'don't need' to work. They never pay towards any school trips yet attend them all and the parents are always dressed in reasonably expensive clothing items. The area they live in is quite deprived though and the school the children attend uses the PP to pay for extra help for all children, not just theirs. Having said that, their children (who are incredibly sweet, all three) do benefit heavily from the extra classes. The parents never complete the extra tasks assigned with them though.

I have no idea why you are using my posts to argue against something I’ve expressed no opinion on Snork. In fact if you read what I’ve written about what my sons school spends it’s PP money on and what I think about that, there is literally nothing for you to disagree with there. But hey, that wouldn’t be interesting to you would it?

You’re putting words in my mouth and then using those fictious statements to knock down and argue against. Don’t drag my name into that artificially please.

I felt I had to justify myself because I was asking for specific advice in my posts and hoping that other posters might be able to advice, and I realised that in asking for that advice I’d put myself in a vulnerable position. I was scared because you or posters like you might come along and trash me, as that’s what happens frequently. Its really rubbish that I have to try and protect myself like that.

It’s also rubbish that having given out my personal information to be judged by strangers eyes, I am then passed over as ‘acceptable needy’... but then it moves the debate onto the whatabout-erry type of arguments instead of the ‘theyre all scum’ arguments. It’s depressing.