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

I feel for the school. They are spending money to try and help Pupil Premium students to succeed and they are getting criticised for it. Maybe they don't funding for everyone, maybe they are doing it based on what they are experiencing everyday in school. Either way they are trying to help their students succeed and have recognised the role of the parent in this.

Mumsnetters are always going on about not wanting their kids to be in schools with lots of pupil premium kids-the silent sound of skirts being drawn aside is deafening. And then they get upset when a school does something to help that group.

Mumsnetters are always going on about not wanting their kids to be in schools with lots of pupil premium kids-the silent sound of skirts being drawn aside is deafening. And then they get upset when a school does something to help that group.

Hi OP,

I totally understand how you feel. I was you about fifteen years ago. I also have a background in education so understood the data driving the PP programme but I felt it was applied like a blunt instrument.

The fact my DC were receiving free school
meals for a period of time in their childhood didn’t negate my parenting skills but my DC were perceived as a social problem just waiting to be fixed.

In retrospect, I feel less irritated by it but that’s probably due to the fact that all 3 dc made it to excellent universities.

Wow, what a naive view. I'm middle class and I can't.

Which is sadly true of many. I was a teacher for 20 years. The parents you most needed to reach were the ones who wouldn't turn up no matter what you did.

How were they "perceived as a social problem"?
This is about academic attainment, not social problems!

dont worry, it is the so called rubbish parents, who wont attend.

I felt a bit like this when my DD started year 7 and I was invited to a special seminar about how to help support her, right down to diet and a reasonable bedtime (she has an EHCP).

I am also a teacher at the school so I felt super awkward!

I went anyway and do you know what - it wasn't un-useful to think about these basics.

A fair few PP (and EHCP) parents in my area are not UK nstionals and didn't grow up with our education system. I doubt I'd know what I was doing either, were I suddenly to be dropped into the Albanian or Nigerian education systems, in a second or third language.

I also had a positive experience of school and the education system. Not the case for all PP parents.

You are articulate and educated. You could support others and be a role model, if you wanted to.

We've all got something to learn if we're open to it.

Schools can’t win can they? If they didn’t explain where pupil premium was being spent people would complain. Being offended has been taken to a whole new level these days.

I agree with the OP, although I can see I’m in a minority.

Generally speaking, anything that singles people out for a reason that isn’t positive isn’t going to be received well.

My children get PP, and we find it amusing as both do really well in school and have lots of parental support, do lots of extra curricular activities etc. But we still take the opportunities this gives us!

For something like this I'd politely decline simply because I don't have 2 hours on an evening to listen to a presentation on things I'm confident in helping my children with, and who's going to be giving said children their dinner and taking them to clubs if I'm there?!

If you get PP, you must know that outcomes for PP children are statistically lower, the school are putting on a helpful event and with food!

Call me shallow but I agree with @Purpleturtle45 - food does bring people in. Helps break the ice too.

PP isn’t just the new FSM, though, is it?

It will be another Osted box ticking exercise. Ofsted ask questions like 'talk about engagement with parents, specifically those whose children are in receipt of pupil premium funding'. Or similar.

Why apply for Pupil Premium if you don't want the support they offer.

There are plenty of parents/carers of children on PP who would attend this. It is possible to be disadvantaged and still have high hopes for your children’s education.

Nonsense, they are helping those who need it most. That is simply the right thing to do.

I assumed pupil premium was for the clever kids. Never heard of this before.
2 of my friends get FSM and are both better off than us. One gets free school bus too because they live just in the edge of the 3 mile rule and we’re a street inside it. I pay £80 bus fare plus dinners. Our combined salary’s are £60 so am way worse of than friends who earn £50k each plus cms etc.

It sounds like a long evening, but others have already pointed out the statistics as to why you’re being targeted. In all likeliness, parents who are engaged with their kids’ learning will go along and be told how to suck eggs, whilst the ones who really need to be targeted won’t go.

@PupilpremiumWTF can I ask what do you think of the poll results?

I am always curious about people who do polls and it never supports their point of view.

My DC is on the sen register, I was invited to lots of these events. I have been to a few, they are ok but not for me. But I have the imagination to understand that for others it is helpful.

Can’t you see if you complain about this to the school you potentially take the opportunity away from parents that it might help?

Can you actually not imagine that for some parents an evening at the school with a meal (there are many families who are genuinely struggling to feed themselves currently) might be a good thing?

The ironic thing is…you’re the one being a snob. You’re the one looking down at people because you’re saying ‘I’m not one of them!’.

You've got to justify how you spend taxpayers' money!
You've also got to analyse outcomes and if a cohort underachieve, address that.
Believe me, I'd have an easy life if I just "ticked boxes" !

The tone is a bit patronising.

Do you know for sure that this type of advice isn't offered to all the parents in some form though?

Thinking back, as well as the special event for EHCP parents (and maybe there was also one for PP parents), there were at least two whole of year 7 events to which all parents were invited, and the info given wasn't dissimilar. The main focus of all of them was that parents understood what they'd signed up to in terms of the home-school agreement.

The school would rightly be criticised for spending PP money in ways that weren't targeted to that student group.

It reads as if PP families are low motivation/intelligence. Well intentioned but misses the mark. Sorry it’s probably a box ticking exercise that they have to do to show how they support PP.