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

Is it fund raising? Not sure I would go, but not exactly offensive.

Elevate Education are everywhere - I guarantee that they’ll pop up again with another session for all parents. I can see why you’re miffed but honestly I am sure this will be opened up to everyone at a later date.

It's like parents complaining about additional activities to support young carers - then some parents saying this is 'levelling down' because the activities are not open to all, and other parents saying that although their child qualifies as a young carer the parent has enough other support for their child not to have any caring responsibilities.

Statistically some groups of children need additional support. The average says nothing about any individual child. It would be prohibitively expensive to run a system based on a detailed analysis of individual circumstances (and then people would complain about the subjective results of the analysis).

So you either do nothing, or provide for specific groups because that support will help most - but not all - in that group. And accept there will be people outside the cut off for that group (and possibly only just outside) who could have benefited.

Indeed @sittingonabeach. The gap is there at both primary and secondary and if you scrutinise the statistics, shows that a significant number of PP kids aren't getting the GCSE grades (particularly English and Maths) for progression to KS5 studies, apprenticeships, University...

You can't prove a counterfactual (what the outcomes would have been without the government intervention and spending) but presumably the government thinks they would have been worse.

Stands to reason that if opportunities are limited but universal, it's the most organised, literate and motivated parents that will take them.

It's deeply patronising and poorly worded and executed. I would write a polite but pointed email to the school setting out their implied erroneous assumptions about the parents of PP children and indicating that these assumptions are offensive.

And if the school actually does have evidence that PP kids as a group struggle more with attendance, punctuality, homework completion and have test scores below average...?

Because they probably will!

Statistically, I’m afraid this probably makes sense to aim more at PP families.

there will be exceptions of course. But the data I suspect will back up what they’re doing here.

My take on OP’s post was that she felt patronised and, in some way, negatively judged. And that’s a perfectly valid way for her to feel without the pile on of people telling her how wrong she is and how she’s misunderstood the aim of the PP programme.

In my own experience, prior to my DC being eligible for PP, I was a teacher. I was actively involved in delivering additional support for PP children. I understood the data and the need for intervention. What I hadn’t experienced was the tone and delivery of messages parents received about it.

Fast forward a couple of years and my circumstances drastically changed after divorce. I felt like a poacher turned gamekeeper when I was suddenly patronised by the headteacher at my DC’s school who seemed unable to see beyond the fact that my children now received FSM and qualified for PP. An earlier poster mentioned bias - this was exactly what we experienced. I didn’t need classes on how to help my children study. My DC actually needed some emotional literacy support to deal with their feelings around their parents’ divorce and one DC needed SEND support. As I rejected the PP support and asked for what the DC actually needed, the Head seemed unable to deviate from the script. The DC did not receive the help they actually needed.

That’s what I meant when I referred to it as a blunt instrument. There is definitely a need for extra help and support for the most disadvantaged and vulnerable. I just don’t think the delivery of PP works in the way that a lot of people, including professionals think it does. And I completely understand why the OP felt patronised.

@PupilpremiumWTF have you looked at the results for your school for pupil premium children, looked at the pupil premium report on their website. In most Primaries the PP funding had been historically spent on teaching assistants to help with intervention work (which does pick up some non PP children)

Off topic, but perhaps the attainment gap is inevitable at a societal level?

Somebody commented the other day saying that kids are now doing maths topics two years earlier than they did at school. If standards are improving / the syllabus is getting harder, then the spread of abilities will become more obvious.

For all the UK's faults there is a general meritocracy in play, so you would generally expect intelligent, successful people to have intelligent successful kids. There will always be exceptions, but I think that's generally true.

Is it reasonable to expect children from less academic families to keep pace with those children? Should we be too concerned about PP children underperforming non-PP children?

Would it be better to target support at geographical areas where children are underperforming the national average?

My DCs school invites all parents to these talks. Do you know who goes? The parents of the kids already doing well. The parents who are already engaged. The professional parents, the middle class parents.

Your kids' school is trying to target this support to where it will do most good. They're spending funds on an incentive to get parents to attend who wouldn't usually. They can't afford a buffet tea for all the parents can they? Maybe you think the incentive they chose is tone deaf and insulting. Maybe you have a chip on your shoulder. I'd be more happy to eat a plate of sandwiches and sausage rolls listing to this talk than sitting there twiddling my thumbs.

You ask why do they think PP families need this help more than other families. PP families are entitled to this money for a reason, that being they earn less than other families. A big reason that people earn less than others is because they have fewer qualifications. They have fewer qualifications for many reasons including a lack of study skills. The school can fix that, so that those families can support the education of their children.

Maybe you did brilliantly at school, maybe life has dealt you cards later on that meant your kids get PP. But school policy is based on averages not the individual experience of a single parent.

It's like being offended at the videos on a self checkout as it insinuates you are a shoplifter. You know you're not, but they are trying to catch the ones who are

only if they turn the video on for those people on benefits and everyone else they turn the video camera off - as they don't need to be recorded

I'm afraid I don't think the UK is a meritocracy at all. I think (well you can see it in the international statistics) that we're a country with a high level of income and (particularly) wealth inequality.

The whole point of PP type programmes (however clumsily promoted) is to increase meritocracy, so that DC who are able but have barriers in their way have more chance to succeed. As a group.

What would you have done differently, if you were the school, OP?
Genuine question.

By all means complain but only if you can make a constructive suggestion as to what they should do instead next year whether that's different wording (if ao, what) or splitting up the PPF talk and the elevate part (although that would mean an additional night for staff to work for free plus less chance attendees would bother/be able to come to both) or opening it up to the whole year....but most people wouldn't attend if the PPF part wasn't relevant to them and the PPF parents might feel judged.....

What's a reasonable change they could make while still providing this opportunity for parents who might benefit?

@ThisOldThang do you think children who come from low income/poorly educated families should be ‘kept in their place’ and not be given the chance to improve their chances. Do you disagree with contextual offers from university?

My taxes are well spent minimising helping every child at least to start fulfilling their potential. Beyond that, it is a question of degree.

As said upthread, different parents have different concerns. At GCSE level, for example, some of the parents an event like this might need to know about the importance of quiet study spaces, the existence of good, free revisions materials etc. Other parents in attendance might be bored stiff by such a discussion (at best). They might try to shift the conversation to university preparation strategies, etc. The parents needing the event most would be silenced. This is wrong.

I write as a hard headed STEM academic and former admissions tutor in a School with a very high offer. I understand the need for standards and the pursuit of excellence. Leaving the vulnerable behind is an unacceptable cost.

Maybe it's the intervention as a group thing?

Sounds suspiciously socialist?

We hear such a lot about individual responsibility in this country.

I'd be really happy to attend.
I'd practise my humility and not be offended at all to mix with people who are pp. (My Dad always said - Don't be afraid to identify as needy or poor and don't look down on people who don't have as much good fortune as yourself.)

That sems like a useful information session and all the better for the kids.
I would go and I would suggest that the whole program be offered to the rest of the school too, when thanking the teachers who organised it.

Maybe there is not funding for every parent though, and you are the chosen lucky few..

I wonder if people would feel the same about black parents being specifically invited to a course to 'educate' them on how to prepare their children for a job interview? That's statistically relevant too.

If the school didn't offer them, they wouldn't be trying to raise education levels..if they do offer them, some people will be upset. You can't please everyone. It's an opportunity,. nobody's forced to attend.

Being a pupil premium family should be confidential so the whole year group should have been invited.

As an aside, our school uses Elevate Education to speak to the pupils and they are quite impressive but that is not what is being discussed here.

You seem very offended OP so are you going to write back saying so? Or just refuse the invitation?
FWIW, I wouldn't be offended because it seems clear that they want this group of pupils to get some extra support and believe that this event will help. Including all the parents probably is not practical.

OP: The school, the teachers, the government, the taxpayers are bending over backwards to make sure your children are not disadvantaged by your circumstances. The school have emailed you in a respectful and welcoming way to what sounds like an evening of (unpaid overtime for the teachers) information and further opportunity for your child to make progress/continue to excel and this is your take away from the whole process?

I have often met parents in my teaching career who do not understand the UK education system because they were educated in a different one.

They weren't stupid. They weren't uneducated (some had probably had less education than they would have liked). But they didn't know our jargon and our system.

Our system is complicated and requires a lot of knowledge to navigate successfully. You don't know what you don't know.

This is compounded as you, the parent, are not actually there at school!

Not if you control for level of education and income I don't think?