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

This is a great post.

Like @CocoPlum ’s DC, OP’s DC may be doing well. I agree that in theory the email could be interpreted as condescending. But the statistics @CocoPlum quotes are true, and the email is not particularly aimed at OP and @CocoPlum

I think the school is at least trying to help.

As an academic I have been concerned about lower attaining students. When I’ve organised structured study events open to all but geared to these students, they have inevitably been dominated by excellent students keen to take every opportunity. The students who need the events only attend when the eager beavers are kept away (which is a delicate task)

I sympathise with the need for a similar approach here.

This. The PP Funding exists because of broad probabilities that some children will statistically be less likely to thrive without additional support. You have PP funding for your DC because they meet these statistical indicators. That doesn't mean they are doomed - it might be that with no additional support your children would nevertheless thrive. Some children do, it's just that it's statistically much fewer than in more privileged cohorts. Yabu to be offended, the school have not done anything wrong. They are offering support, information and advice that a lot of the families who get PP urgently need.

So perhaps some of the information is stuff you already know and some of the advice is about stuff you already do.
So what?

You aren't going to be given a grade of 1-9 for how perfect your parenting was when your child reaches adulthood, there aren't points available for knowing things already. What's the alternative? You want a 1:1 session specifically tailored to your needs without any content that's not specifically about you? You want the school to quintuple the budget for the event so that the privileged parents can come too and monopolise the staff time with their worries about why their little Oscar isn't being selected as Gifted&Talented?

Yes absolutely this. Top down data driven initiatives don't really think about how they might make people feel. I've seen exactly the same happen to schools and they do cause a lot of upset as schools feel that they're being told that they're failing. I've seen it from the top and experienced it as a parent too.

Talking of patronising...

I found primary schools a bit 1950s and deal in stereotyping a lot - particularly putting children in ‘boxes’ they can’t escape. They also assume the mum is at home and available for menial tasks and there is a slightly patronising attitude. This comms has good intentions but it is at risk of bias in stereotypes which is why OP is offended.

I think you’re being a bit dramatic OP.

PP funding is given to the school to improve outcomes. It is known that children from PP families tend to do less well in school; it’s great the school are wanting to show you what they do and how you can support!

they can’t please everyone it seems but I think it’s great. A lot of people think it just means the kids get a free school dinner.

"Boxes they can't escape"?
That's the very opposite of what this type of thing is trying to achieve.

and rude as well.

You’re just looking to be offended. It’s not personal. It’s meant to be a nice, supportive event.

The messaging that came with the outreach done for PP children then was not limited to apocalyptic forecasts about their educational attainment.

I clicked YABU but I changed my mind. It’s quite patronising isn’t it, you PP parents couldn’t possibly know how to help your child progress in school. It should have been open to everyone.

Whilst you might be a stellar parent, engaged in your child's learning, the reality is that many PP parents aren't. Have you ever taught secondary school? The kids with behavioural, academic and attendance issues are far more likely to be from poorer families, with parents who aren't engaged or have given up trying to get their child to get to school and/or behave.

There are myriad reasons for this, none of which are that those parents don't love their kids as much as anyone else. A combination of 'I never did well at school, it didn't do me any harm', 'I don't understand the material, how can I help my child study?', being time-poor and exhausted due to having to work long hours in more physical jobs, not having learned proper study techniques themselves (but unaware of this), lacking funds for additional support outside of school (tutors, extra curriculars), undiagnosed SEN, and a thousand other things.

I'm really pleased for you if none of the above apply, but pleased don't think that just because you don't need it, nobody else does. Spend a year teaching in a secondary school, your eyes will be opened.

It's more important that support reaches the right people than it is to worry about offending people who clearly don't need it.

I've never read any "apocalyptic forecasts" for any students.

This ⬆️

Why on earth would you be offended by this? It is doing what it says on the tin. At least they are taking an interest in your child's education and inviting you to do the same. Unless, of course, you consider yourself to be above all this?

They should probably replace the "light tea" with a packet of B&H and a few cans of stella because that will really tempt us all in.

Let's be honest, that probably would tempt in exactly the type of parents that need this kind of help.

You might be onto something.

This is interesting in itself because it makes the assumption that if something is well intentioned and ‘meant nicely’ then the person on the receiving end must take it with good grace.

I don’t think that’s true. I can think of numerous examples where the opposite is true!

The problem is that poverty is an immensely complex problem and isn’t solved by ‘have some money.’

I don’t pretend to have the answers here; if I did I’d be in politics and not teaching myself. I do know that lobbing some money at schools for these children isn’t going to solve it, though! And well intentioned it may be but it is a clumsy way of approaching it.

I can see this from both sides and why you might be offended. But the school is trying to do something positive here trying to support a cohort with statistically poorer outcomes.

Your children are obviously well supported which is great but many aren’t. If there is limited space odds are if they ran an open event a large proportion of parents of children who would benefit less would take up the spaces.

Just don’t go if you don’t want to or want to make a principled point.

If they gave that help to all the parents, then the non-PP children would also benefit and it wouldn't help to close the gap between PP and non-PP.

It seems pretty cynical to not help non-PP children/parents just because you're worried about the statistics.

It was drilled home by DCs primary headteacher that every aspect of their lives was likely to be negative impacted by their status of being PP children. I wish I was making that up.

I wish you were too. That's appalling.

Statistically, there are usually significant differences in the attainment of FSM / PP students and their peers, so the school is trying to address this. Were everyone to be invited, it may be difficult for staff to explain why some children can access special support, for example financial help for enrichment / trips or tutoring, which others can’t. Obviously PP students are not a homogeneous group, a family may have claimed means tested support within the past six years but now be out of poverty, and some PP pupils will have highly educated / skilled parents.

Some schools do

The problem is it’s always a myriad of things. It’s so much better when schools can work with PP students as individuals rather than making broad assumptions. But I get that’s not always possible, especially in big secondary schools with a large percentage of PP. anything else is likely to fall flat on its face, though.

You are assuming that the school has made an assumption that parents of children in receipt of PP funding might need help in study support.

it is possible that this is based on data. The school will have all sorts of metrics and break that down by different categories of children (male/female, SEND, EAL, PP etc).

PP comes with funding and the school has to demonstrate that they use the funding to target areas that help children in receipt of PP.

So, for example, if the data they have shows that the ‘effort’ marks given to children for homework completion (which is a data point at our school) are statistically meaningfully lower that those given to children not in receipt of PP, this may be one of the ways they try to improve this.

Who isn't being helped?
My yr10 class - some of them have parents who have already bought them revision guides for the course. These parents email me about what to focus on, what the key points should be.
Others have no idea what a revision guide is. They're given one for free.
All of these students are helped and supported.