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

Sounds like the school being proactive to me. Nothing wrong with it.

My dd is just diagnoses adhd and struggles at school. Prior to diagnosis she was kind of lumped in the not achieving bucket. When they had meetings for parents of those children (including mine) there was coffee and biscuits / snacks, and on one occasion a gift card for turning up.

A lot of schools are doing similar PP and deprived children are being identified as a group who require additional help via funding and support to enable them to receive an equal opportunity non PP children have. My brother is a headteacher and he has been talking about this for a while. The new Ofsted inspection focuses on PP and deprived children in each category of their inspection.

Why are you so sensitive about receiving additional information that isn't relevant to the rest of the school? If your child is excelling just ignore the rest of the extra help they are providing. I'm sure you can decline the funding from PP and remove yourself from the group.

And priority access to their school of choice through the ranking system, including grammar schools.
Are you also offended by that?

The point is to support a cohort that is statistically underperforming. If you're not concerned then don't attend.

It's not an assumption. It's based on facts that themselves are backed up by evidence-based research.

As a Head of Department, I analyse our performance data, i.e. exam results - both mocks and actual GCSEs. I compare these to national trends. Unfortunately, the picture is pretty uniform. PP learners do worse than their peers. There are exceptions to this, with migrant PP learners performing better than their peers.

Anyway, the highest leverage areas of support required (i.e. the ones that would make the most difference to outcomes) are those identified by the school email.

Are all parents being coached on how to support learning? Or just Pupil Premium parents?

Because that who government provide funding for. All money has to be spent on PP DC.

Yup. As a teacher, can’t do right for doing wrong.

I would also find it offensive. The presentation should be available to all parents, not just PP parents. Will you complain to the school?

Exactly - I bet OP isn’t offended by some of the other initiatives to help PP students. Her kids should be taken off the scheme given they are apparently so lacking in any need of extra support.

They're using the PP money to pay for it, so only PP children and parents get it.

Oh good grief.

The purpose of any school is to give their pupils the best possible chance in life by educating them and getting them good exam results

Out of the lower performing children some of their parents will need this extra support and some will not.

If you don't think that this applies to you then decline the invite.

Stop looking for reasons to be offended. It was a generic group mail out. I hope you put as much effort into helping your child's learning as you do about whinging.

So you want a presentation which is intended specifically to support a demographic that statistically underachieve to be taken over by a demographic that statistically doesn’t need it?

How would that help reduce the achievement gap between pp students and the rest?

How would you stop all the places and events being over-run with the hyper motivates more wealthy mums who will go to anything and everything and don't need any help?

And how will they fund that, when this funding is only for pp students?

OP, read this. Actually, properly read it. And then read it again. One more time probably wouldn’t hurt after that too.

Then move on

I find it ridiculous to be offended. PP children as a cohort do less well in education, which is why they attract extra funding.

If you don't think you need the info then fine, maybe you aren't the main target, but totally ridiculous to be offended.

My DD attracted PPPlus, and we occasionally got offered clubs first and/or or free. We accepted the clubs DDs would benefit from, but paid ourselves because we could. We weren't offended at being offered things for free. Similarly when we got food vouchers under a scheme in Covid for vulnerable pupils we passed them on, we didn't take offence.

You are nuts. They spend the first 30 mins talking about what they do AT SCHOOL. Of course they want to see that work supported in the home environment. If you are doing it good for you. You may pick up another way of supporting your kids though. God help teachers these days. They can't do right for doing wrong.

I think that's pretty arrogant to believe you have nothing to learn. It isn't for your time management or effective studying, it is for your child. You might think you know how to manage your time and how to study effectively, but do you really know how to teach that to your child? Even if you did, good for you, but still, to believe you have nothing new to learn ever is so arrogant and narrow minded.

For the identifying the parents of PP students, I can see why that can be upsetting.

Will you be turning down the contextualised offers in Y13?

A friend lives in a borough that, statistically, has a low transfer rate to university. Her privately educated child had contextual offers from 3 RG universities. She wasn't offended, he didn't need the offer, but it was there to support someone who might.

Then target the kids who are not doing as well as their peers, regardless of socioeconomic group. Why leave the middle class and rich parents out of learning something so precious and valuable that everyone would be so grateful to receive?

Schools are not allowed to do this with pupil premium funds. PP funds have to be used to support student who are at risk (based on identified risk factors including a low-income household, social services involvement, young carers, and current or former LAC) regardless of how each child is performing in school. This is a point of emphasis because there is strong data that children who have these disadvantages but are high-achieving at KS2 are still statistically far more likely to fall behind in KS3 or KS4 compared to non-disadvantaged peers. Part of the reason PP exists is to prevent that from happening.

There seems to be a fair amount of misunderstanding of PP, including the reasons it exists and how it must be used. Schools are required to develop a strategy with a three-pronged approach: high-quality teaching, targeted academic support (again, this can't only be for low-attaining pupils), and addressing wider barriers to learning. Parent communication and support falls into the last one, and it's important because parental involvement is one of the most important factors in pupil success and statistically it differs significantly between at-risk and non-at risk cohorts.

If people want to read about it the DofE guidance is here
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium/pupil-premium

EEF's guidance for schools contains an overview of some of the data behind PP's existence along with guidance for how schools should create their PP strategy and it can be found here
educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/using-pupil-premium

Ding Dong OP. This meeting is not about you and your feelings - it's about your child and helping him at school - to eventually help him succeed in life.
GO to the meeting. The teachers are not doing it for their own enjoyment or to make you feet inferior. You have a chip on you shoulder

But statistically speaking, that is the case for many PP homes vs non PP homes. It’s also the reason why in my local area of 11+ schools PP children get first priority and are offered free online tuition before the exam.

I think it’s a great offer by the school and we should be doing all we can to help disadvantaged children get the best start in life.

Because you are the perfect parent? I firmly believe all of us can always learn more about anything in life including parenting.
You just want to be offended over nothing. It’s an invite, clearly they have identified issues, you don’t have to go or reply.

PP students attract extra funding. The school unlike most schools is being transparent in showing how that is being spent. Happily in this case the funding is being spent in an area likely to directly help children by improving study skills. Study skills are particularly useful to this group of students. Also study skills and brain science have moved on considerably in the past few years so even if you help your child at home there will be some very good advice and guidance. But yes you’re offended so definitely don’t go.

Pupil Premium is additional government funding provided to schools in England to support disadvantaged pupils and narrow the attainment gap between them and their peers. This funding is allocated based on eligibility criteria, including pupils who receive or have received free school meals, children previously in local authority care, and those from service families. Schools use this funding to provide educational benefits such as intervention programs, extra resources, and other support services for eligible students.

This sounds government-led to me and whilst I take your point I would just roll my eyes and ignore.