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

@TheRealHousewifeofCheshire we don’t know what you meant by ‘celebrating’. It wasn’t an awards evening. It is to explain what they spend pupil premium on and giving studying techniques.

It sounds like you’re the one making judgements about children who are on PP. There are so many reasons why children might be on PP and the fact they are doing this to support the families is great. If you don’t feel you need support, then that’s great and you should be grateful for that, because some families really do struggle and would really appreciate this kind of support.

I get your point but I think that ultimately my issues around this event, aside from the risk of parents feeling patronised and the privacy concerns, are that one off interventions really don't tend to be effective. Plus the generic content misses the mark. If they want to improve parental engagement the issue is that this tends to be established in the primary school years and a one off event won't change this. And how will long term outcomes be measured against a one off event.

I just think that the money can be spent more effectively elsewhere really. It's the easy tick box option.

YABU. This will be based on PP students demographic statistics, you should be pleased with yourself you don’t need the additional help, not annoyed it’s on offer based off of evidence.

Does the school have finances to offer this across the board I would ask, and if not then surely it’s better that it’s available for those that may need it.

I feel with most of these things that doing something is better than doing nothing. And that government money needs to be spent and accounted for. Which is what they seem to be trying to do.

Events can always be improved another year in response to feedback.

It might well be only a small amount of the PP funding is being spent on this event. Anything the school does for PP involving staff time (small group or one-to-one interventions for instance) will cost much more proportionally. A poster mentioned a widening participation university trip for instance. That will have required train fare or a minibus driver and fuel. PP-focused homework clubs etc require someone to staff them.

Regarding engagement needing to start at primary school. Our system in this country has this big divide between year 6 and year 7 which raises a lot of issues. Not a lot a secondary can do about that, but it's sensible to focus a lot of intervention on year 7 parents and most do work with the primaries that send them most students.

This PP system has been in existence for 15 years. It's not something Bridget Philipson invented yesterday!

This

Jesus the depressing comments on this thread. I wonder how people would feel if the event was for black parents only or white parents only because statistics show..........etc etc. It's discrimination pure and simple and the fact that so many people are perfectly happy with it is depressing as fuck.

@Owly11 is pupil premium discriminating? The event is for families that are eligible for pupil premium

R u a nutcase? its a meeting to drive the best n your child, great that they bothered to do that in their busy schedules…..

Just to be clear, you're equating a government programme to address socio-economic disadvantage that strongly affects the average academic outcomes of particular groups of children, with racism?

Does inequality go away if you ignore it?

@Thekidsarefightingagain maybe the school are trying to engage the parents, and once engaged they may hold further events. Might be interesting to see what the school’s pupil premium report says. Might be that school will be encouraging the techniques advocated by the organisation. Put details in school newsletters etc.

The parents attending the presentation are being given resources to take away with them.

Maybe it is a way that the school can report that they have used funding for all PP children. It can be hard sometimes to show the impact of PP on students that are already high achievers. Learning study techniques is always going to be a useful thing

Do you wake up every morning with the intention of being patronising or does it just come to you. My response was to the OP and you are picking my comments unnecessarily. I am not really bothered if YOU know what I meant, I was responding to the post not YOU.

Stigma on intelligence! ??when i was at comprehensive, there were bottom, middle and top classes, so everyone knew who was thick and who was clever, the middle classes could only take cse exams, the top classes took o levels, the bottom classes were lucky to do cse exams, most left with nothing, thats 30 years ago

It’s highly likely this seminar has been paid for out of pupil premium money. Therefore, if they offered the event out to all parents, it’s then not a section of money being spent to support pupil premium children, which is the legal requirement. That’s why they can’t do it as a whole school event.

In line with the legal expectations, the school will target the money where it’s most needed and this is where the school have statistically seen a need with their PP children. They don’t just do these events to get rid of a block of Pupil Premium money. They look at where their records show it can be best spent. Maybe they’ve noticed that many of their PP children don’t complete homework or that the parents of PP children aren’t reading with younger pupils each night, whereas other parents are. That doesn’t mean that you don’t do these things, just that statistically that’s what the whole picture shows.

You don’t have to take it as an individual slur on your parenting but you’ve chosen to do so. It’s an offer of help for those who feel they may need it. Personally, no matter how good a parent I think I am, I’d be going to see if I can pick up any new hints or tips to support my child.

As for your tone when ridiculing “a few sandwiches”, you need to take a long hard look at yourself! Those few sandwiches may be all a parent has the opportunity to eat that day because during the current economic climate, they are having to use food banks and feeding their children is their priority. The school will have some knowledge of parents who use food banks (through the referral process) so again, they’ve spent a bit of money where there’s a need!

No one is accusing you of anything or making any assumptions about your parenting. That’s just the way you’ve chosen to perceive this! I’m sure most of the parents attending are good parents and try their best for their children, but who’s to say a little bit of extra support or some new ideas can’t help everyone?

I am saying that identifying a group of people based on any characteristic, whether race, gender or socio-economic disadvantage and suggesting that those parents need to implement strategies at home to improve chances is discrimination, yes, and offensive. It's just that in our society we have some types of discrimination that are considered acceptable and some that aren't. Evidence shows that white boys are doing very poorly at school. But the school don't put on events for parents of white boys to show them how to support their kids. If it's ok to do it for one disadvantaged group (pupil premium) why not another (white boys)? I would be interested to hear an answer to that.

@Owly11 because it is likely funded by pupil premium which needs to be spent on pupil premium children

I agree with you
After all the effort done to make sure people can't tell how children are paying (or not) for their dinners, putting on events like this feels palpably stupid. Just open it to all the school then anyone can go without feeling they are being labelled

I find it odd that people are so ready to call "discrimination" on this action by the school & that the OP clearly feels shame about being included.

What is shaming about taking up help when it's offered? Does that mean that anyone receiving benefits should feel shame? Or anyone using a food bank?
Are we not getting beyond that way of thinking?

The school has PP money to spend and, with their knowledge & experience, have found a way to use that money in a useful way to help PP children & families.

That's it, it's no deeper than that & the idea that some posters, the OP included, think it's shaming or "outing" in some way to go along says more about them than anything else in my view.

The OP doesn't say which year her child is in, but if they're in year 7, she probably won't know what the school's done previously/usually does with their PP funds. The evening would be a chance to find out.

I've taught in some very varied schools over 15 years (coinciding, by chance, with PP being launched - hadn't realised that till contributing to this thread!) Some with very few PP kids, some with lots. It's very area dependent. PP also stops at 16 at which point schools can bid for Bursary funds for sixth-formers: those are allocated to individual pupils who can decide how to spend them, within parameters - they have to be applied for though. In England, they replace the old Educational Maintenance Allowance which still exists I think in Scotland, Wales, NI.

So there's a lot of state money going into these programmes tinkering with capitalism round the edges.

Should it be hush-hush or should it be discussed?

There’s a difference to it being discussed and it being obvious who the children and parents are, though.

’PP children do not pay for school trips’ fine.
’Oliver Smith, Lily Williams, Noah Jones and Rosie Harrison won’t be paying for the school trip’ is obviously not fine.

Those students would already attract Pupil Premium if their parents met the FSM/ever 6 criteria. They're already included.

Pupil Premium is positive discrimination I suppose, if you want to frame it in those terms.

And why are pupil premium children doing worse statistically? The assumption that the parents are failing their children and need to be brought in to be given extra guidance, over and above what other parents need, is false and offensive. But that is where they choose to spend the money. Why not spend it on free music lessons or education for staff members on making prejudicial assumptions about families based on income? Why choose to spend it on enforcing those assumptions by bringing in classes for the parents?

@yourewelcomethen Children who receive PP+ because they are adopted may well pay for trips. Adopted children don't all live in low income homes. Just saying. That means parents who are invited to events related to PP could be spread widely across income brackets.

As there is little support in many areas post adoption, I think it likely those parents would welcome the help. The ones I know would.

I imagine kids do know who gets FSM because those kids are provided with packed lunches for trips and events off site that cover the lunch period.

I'm interested to know how some posters on here would handle that. Not feed them?

I'd be quite happy if an event was targeted at white, working class boys. Or gypsy, Roma, traveller girls. Or any other group that needs a leg up. Because, from experience, if you open it to all, those you really need to target don't attend.

www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/education-skills-and-training/11-to-16-years-old/gcse-results-attainment-8-for-children-aged-14-to-16-key-stage-4/latest/#by-ethnicity-and-eligibility-for-free-school-meals