To feel offended by this email from the school?

[PupilpremiumWTF]

I think I'll just post the email without any elaboration for now, and see what people think, this is copied and pasted directly, with identifying info changed:

Dear Mrs X,

It’s great to be able to invite you to a special evening for parents of our Pupil Premium students in Years 7, 8 and 9 on Thursday 20th November 2025.

We’ll be starting with a light buffet tea from 5:00 pm, giving you the chance to chat informally with staff and other parents before the evenings presentations begin.

At 5:30 pm, I’ll give a short overview of how we use Pupil Premium funding here at school to support students’ learning and wellbeing, and to help every child make the best possible progress.

From 6.00 pm to 7:00 pm, we will to be joined by Elevate Education, who will deliver a practical, engaging seminar designed to help parents support learning at home.

Topics covered will include:

- Time Management – helping your child to plan effectively and avoid last-minute stress.

• - Study Support – understanding what effective study looks like and how to make it stick.
• - Motivation – discovering what really drives student motivation and how to nurture it.
• - Parent E-book Access – every parent attending will receive a free e-book full of strategies and guidance.

This is a brilliant opportunity to pick up some useful ideas and find out more about how we’re supporting your child’s progress in school.

I really hope you’ll be able to join us for what promises to be an enjoyable and informative evening.

Please let us know if you can attend by completing the form on EduLink.

Kind regards,

Mr Y
Senior Assistant Headteacher

perhaps you would like to evidence your thought with actual facts. The funding criteria are there to be read (see link already given)

It’s an offer of help that can be accepted or declined. I understand the difficulties of differentiating between quantitative and qualitative statistics. Bless your soul.

Statistically children who are on PP do require extra support, and that begins at home.
if the funding doesn’t stretch to non PP kids, they can’t invite them.
Stop being offended and either take or leave it. It’s free help for your kids to achieve their potential

Actually yes, our school holds evenings like this, EAL families, young carers, bereaved families, forces families
Like I said schools are being encouraged to tailor and personalise their offer

Exactly, there is no way in the world that the school can know the ins and outs of the home life of every student. What they do know is who receives extra help - in whatever way, financial or otherwise - and these are the students they want to offer additional support to, most often via the parents because kids can't make those choices. If people get het up about that they are genuinely missing the bigger picture - it's an offer, not a demand, it's signposting, not frogmarching. My mum was a single parent for many years - she got lots of letters about things and never thought anything was stigmatising. It was the education service trying their best - there are not the resources, nor the detailed information, to be able to ONLY approach those most in need. Lots of people are not honest about their home life, so you have to use a targeted approach based on what you DO know.

The criteria for funding - not the evaluation criteria. They are different things.

We all believe you:

You got FSM and did great at school. No need at all for any support to be offered to kids and parents claiming FSM, Your experience shows that they don’t need it. Well done you.

But not everyone is on pupil premium! And yes people on pupil premium are more disadvantaged. Statistics and data don’t lie!

This. Is statistics based. Not personal

I sort of get why you are offended. It's the offer of a buffet tea, like you would struggle to feed your own children, and the implication that maybe you need the help to support your children's learning more than wealthier parents do. It's the 'othering' of pp families, when plenty of non pp parents are rubbish at supporting their dc and could do with the help more than you!

The school don't mean anything by this - they are statistics driven and cast a wide net to capture those students who might need the support. They aren't judging you personally. I see why you don't feel comfortable though.

Your home environment would benefit from improving, everyone's will.

Do you not have the ability to learn and take on any positive suggestions?

I honestly don’t see why you would be offended by this

I’m old - what is Pupil Premium please?

I may be one of many outliers, but I still think schools need to be accountable for how they spend their PP funding. Too often it’s spent in other ways.

They are being accountable - they are spending an evening explaining it.

Poor use of wording. I'm being picky. "It great to invite you" that's not how you start a invite

Good!

I doubt that is what they meant. Am sure its just their idea of hospitality. Some meetings at our school will have some food/snacks/light tea. Others wont. I think its fair to say this. Its hospitality but also if am just coming from work and hungry but pressed for time, I would be happy to know I can have something there. Thats way I dont have to rush home for a snack before the meeting.

Exactly.

I can see why you would be offended, though if it were me I would probably turn up anyway just to see what it was about. I wouldn't be offended exactly, but it would annoy me: the partnership with Elevate Education who I would presume would be getting a massive kickback for providing obvious, common sense information in a very stylised, meaningless corporate way.

The best pp scheme I have heard about on MN gave parents a choice of possible uses of their pp money, so they could choose for example free uniform, money off school trips or out of school clubs, extra tuition, etc.

Only been in this country 7 years but there are times when I think - especially for education system - you are fu*ed if you dont. You are fu*ed harder if you do

I think it's quite condescending for the parents who don't need the advice and also quite unnecessary for those needing it but who won't care or do not have the time to be fully invested in their children's learning because they are too busy making ends meet.

I do think PP can be handled insensitively. I work in secondary. Over the years I have seen PP kids pulled out of lessons to be given big conspicuous bags of stationery and revision guides . One year the school was given these patchwork quilts by a charity. They were lovely but in no way anything a teenager would want. The school bought these massive Christmas bags and the pp kids had to carry these quilts they didn’t want/need home in them . Talk about embarrassing. We all have to make three positive phone calls a week to pp students. Trouble is , just like all YPs , some are good and some less so. So the same students parents get the calls . It’s an affluent area and there might be two to three in class so some students get a lot of calls . You have to always ‘cold call’ them and make them ‘front and centre’ and mark their books first too . PP was always a blunt tool . I know some families that are well off - in fact one had house in France, horses etc…. I know that doesn’t necessarily make someone rich and it’s none of my business how people spend money, however equally I know families who are struggling financially and not entitled to PP. Personally, I think the evening described by the OP is a breach of confidentiality as parents would now know who is pp . I have been in teaching for nearly 25 years and I can honestly say that for all the categorisation of young people: PP, SEND, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, traveller, parents in services, graduate parents or not, post code, ACE, attendance…. WHATEVER…. Some are academic and suited to school exams and others aren’t but usually find their niche. So no, OP, I don’t think YABU to feel offended. The Assistant Head could have contacted parents individually, outlined how money is spent and asked you if they could help your young person. I don’t think you needed to be bribed in with an offer of your tea either! I’m increasingly ashamed of my profession and getting out of it .

@PupilpremiumWTF this is obviously a big issue for you. Perhaps write to teh school and Elevate on what it made you feel like, what they can do better next time. But please please, do not go to this meeting. You will feel worse for it. But honestly, I doubt they meant everything you have interpreted this to mean. Your feelings are valid though. They are yours.

They’re not making an assumption. There will be a higher proportion of families who will benefit from something like this amongst the PP pupils than in the rest of the school. The school will know that not everyone they have sent the letter to needs to attend but they’ll be hoping that the offering will appeal to some of the people they’re trying to target.

My guess is that the aim of the evening is to start to build positive relationships with these families. If you’ve already got a positive relationship with the school and don’t need the help they’re offering that’s great, you don’t need to go and are unlikely to be one of the target families they have in mind.