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

@Owly11 they are giving study techniques to parents. Do you think that is a bad thing? This won’t be the only thing they are spending PP on. Many schools will also use it to pay for extra curricular activities. Part of the session is to tell parents what they spend PP on, so part of that can include telling parents what things they can subsidise. It can be hard to get PP pupils to sign up for clubs, so this could be a good opportunity to ‘sell’ these clubs to parents

Free music lessons! Now that would be controversial, outside Venezuela (wish it wasn't - when I was growing up in the 80s there was lots of free and heavily subsidised music - no longer).

PP isn't, and doesn't have to be, spent on the individual child.

It's group funding that has to be spent on the designated group.

Sixth form Bursary is individual. I don't know if it could be spent on music lessons. I think possibly it could if the child were doing Music A-level.

This is going to blow some posters' minds I think, but when Ofsted come in, class teachers will need to be able to show where they have seated PP children (among various other categories) and how they have adapted teaching for them, as needed.

I checked and yes 6th form Bursary can be spent on music lessons subject to approval of the school.

Good to know.

No they don’t 😂. They also don’t look at planning, they don’t grade lessons, they don’t even spend the full lesson in the classroom.

What, you've been in every inspection have you 😂

Ofsted will be asking questions about PP spend and impact. They may ask what percentage of PP pupils make up clubs and what school do to encourage PP pupils to join

And rightly so if schools are receiving money for PP children.

Schools don't have time to be faffing about overthinking everything like MN posters, they are given money for a group, they need to spend it wisely and account for it.

They have chosen to do this and you can bet they have the stats and evidence to back it up because that's one things schools do well now - stats & number crunching.

Well this thread will be full soon.

The government spend £2.9bn on Pupil Premium annually so it's good to discuss it. I certainly learnt things from the discussion. Thank you for starting the thread, OP.

Terrible way to engage parents though! I know it's not the intention and won't offend many but It risks coming across as:

"Dear Poor Parent

Come to our special event for poor parents where you can meet other poor parents. We will feed you and explain how we spend money on your poor, underachieving child. We'll even throw in a session on basic parenting skills that you apparently lack."

And even if there are more sessions it really isn't the best way to use PP funding. Far better is to use it on proven, in school evidence based approaches that actually work.

Well intentioned idea but deeply flawed and needs a rethink.

I get why you feel insulted, OP.

And how do you know this approach hasn't been used before and been shown to be effective?

@Thekidsarefightingagain looking at pupil premium reports of some schools they are using Elevate Education programme so why wouldn’t they invite parents in to talk about this programme (any different than inviting parents in to talk about curriculum, phonics) but this programme is being used with pupil premium funding.

Are you in education? If so how do you encourage PP parents to sign up to extra curriculum clubs? Schools I have been governor for in the past really struggled, so if you have techniques that work please share.

Schools have to notify parents what they are spending PP on. Some special categories of PP are for an individual child, but general PP can be spent across all PP pupils. Some parents don’t understand that and this session can provide an explanation on how it works (this thread shows how little many people know about PP)

And bearing in mind PP also relates to looked after children, adopted children, children with parents in armed forces. You won’t have to stand up in the room, give your name and state which category you fall in.

Because they're implying that those of us with kids on PP are not just poor, but also a bit dense?

Well unfortunately that's actually the case broadly.

Not you though! Or me, and I'd be busy working and decline.

I don't have room to collect fences.

Are you a poor parent? I am, and the poor parents among us who need this won't take offense. Probably wouldn't even receive it cause few of them have internet.

This needs to be a leaflet.

@sittingonabeach there is a register of clubs (what/when/where) and we award house points for every attendance at a club. So those records can be crosschecked with lists of PP students to see if they're attending clubs, and which ones.

Mentors can see the club list and recommend them.

Most of our clubs are free and are at lunchtime. One that isn't (because the outside venue makes a charge), the teacher who runs it fundraises each year so free places can be offered.

So barriers to attendance like not being able to stay after school (because of e.g. paid work or care of younger siblings) or cost, can be removed or reduced.

@user793847984375948 a good school will know who has issues with internet connections etc and will communicate with them accordingly.

@Needlenardlenoo I live in a rural area, issue with after school clubs can be getting home as school buses will have left. Some secondary schools run late buses but getting too expensive to do that now, so that will limit who can attend these clubs

Is it that they presume students with PP will be crap and not do well. I've had this with my kid his whole time at school. Offers of showing me how to read with him etc despite the face he's always been in the top cohort of achievement and had top reading score.
I just ignore them

So should schools genuinely not be trying to narrow the large attainment gap between poorer students and their classmates? Would it be better if we ignored the gap, and if these students were not identified?

Btw I've got a good personal, current example of what happens if you offer help to everyone instead of just the people who need it. I have started running a lunch time drop-in session for my Y11 GCSE class and have arranged for A Level students to mentor those who feel the need help in the run-up to the mocks. All but one of the Y11s who have taken advantage of these offers are very able mc students (several of whom have parents who are teachers) wanting to edge up from a grade 8 to a 9.

As a parent of a PP child this is how it often feels! Degree educated but on a low income due to working part time (health condition), but made to feel uneducated because 'we're poor'!

My child spends birthday money on theatre tickets but we've been invited to meetings to show me 'how to read with him'!

I feel this would be better spent on the students that don't or can't read regardless of household income

It's not a presumption though! It's an AVERAGE negative gap in outcomes of over 25% in GCSE scores, that occurs every year.

Of course there are outliers and non average outcomes and non PP kids who do worse than expected.

You hear from outliers all the time in motivational speeches don't you? Blah blah, bootstraps, this or that situation never held me back. When you look into their backgrounds, there was almost always a protective factor. A parent or grandparent who particularly valued education. A teacher who took an interest. A programme that was funded...

@SurvivalInstinctsOfABakedPotato nationally the attainment gap for PP students is large, in some parts of the country it is horrendous. I gave an example of one school where only 18% of PP children reached expected standard at KS2 and that school isn’t unique.

That is a difficult issue.

I taught in a grammar that drew in from a huge geographical area and they had a similar issue. Often only one bus to a particular village or area.

They lengthened the lunch hour and almost everything was then in terms of clubs.