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

Great post @NeverDropYourMooncup! I see nothing but positives what that school is offering.

I didn't refuse to accept it. I said that not all INDIVIDUALS on PP will be low performing, all the students on PP aren't one homogeneous being all performing exactly the same you know.

I wonder how many people that think this is fine would say the same if all the single parents got invited in instead. The assumption that because you're a single parent you need a nice patronising lecture on how to support your child's education.

And we know from educational charities such as the Sutton Trust (an excellent organisation) that educational disadvantage tends to map onto economic disadvantage.

Why do you see it as patronising @LlamaNoDrama? the school have some funding they can use to help some parents with guidance on study skills for their DC. In an ideal world where funding was plentiful schools might be able to offer this to all parents. But we don’t live in this ideal world and neither do our school families. So some parents have some funding available to them via the school to attend a presentation on how to help with study skills. Surely no parent thinks they are so amazing they can’t learn or listen to some techniques they may not have considered.

When I sat my O-levels (I am that old!) my main distraction when studying at home would likely to have been trying to tape the top 40 without the chatter of the DJ. So whole new world for DS when he started Secondary, internet, social media, gaming etc. Curriculum changes, different subjects etc. When DS started Secondary I came on here to look at and ask advice on homework techniques etc (how much do we get involved, leave him to get on with it). DH and I both have degrees, professional qualifications, professional roles, but I am not so conceited to think that I know everything about parenting.

Statistics show that many PP children have significantly worse outcomes than their non PP peers. Why wouldn’t schools with limited (and ringfenced funding) target these families to give some additional support and guidance

This is such nonsense!

It's info that would be useful to everyone but the school are offering it to PP families as an extra thing, a benefit, a good thing.

I would have 100% gone to something like this when my kids were in Y7 & been grateful for it especially with my eldest - secondary school was such an unknown after primary.
Stop looking for an agenda that just isn't there.

Well this is pointless because you actually stated that it was ignorant to even say PP is a low performing group. I disagreed with this, because on average, as a group, they are underperforming compared to the national average across the wider cohort.

"Saying pp students are a low performing group is also pretty ignorant btw as you're lumping all PP students together"

I mean, if there were statistics to show that kids of single parents - across the board, whatever the income or standard of living - were disadvantaged then, hell yes, I’d support it and would snap it up if offered to me. But there aren’t. So it’s a straw man

I think you're being rather short sighted

A vast majority of pupil premium children come from single parent households - those single parents are juggling working along with managing a household full time and single-handedly.
Secondary comes with a LOT more homework and that increases greatly over the years. So some pointers on how best to support their children - particularly if they won't be home until 5.30-6pm - could be really useful as they can let you know how much homework to expect to help you fit it into your evening so you're not blindsided and then have to figure it out...it seems you heard "time management" and assumed they were saying you were lacking.

I think it's actually fantastic that this school is being open about the funding available and how parents are able to access it. Not only does it assist with lunches and school trips but it can also be used to assist with clothing and shoes and they are also entitled to assistance for the school breaks.

Giving parents an open breakdown and allowing them to meet staff in person as they are more likely to be unable to communicate via more than email, gives them a chance to put faces to names.

They're offering a tea so that people who've just finished work and are dying to get home for a bite to eat will still come as, they know they'll have a snack to hold them over - it's nothing to do with people "needing" it.

Why are you offended?They are offerring help and advice for,YOUR child. In an informal and friendly armtmosphere.
They will get funding for this which they obviously plan to spend wisely. Why dont you think you will gain some useful ideas from this me3tin?
What exactly offended you?

But by branding it as a pupil premium evening lots of the parents will be too embarrassed of being identified as such and so won't go.

Why not just discretely invite the PP parents without mentioning PP to remove the stigma.

Actually if you re read the post that was only one of the options why people are low income? If however your child has pp, then there a variety of factors set by the government attached to that. How it attached in op's case is neither here nor there but getting huffy because the school is trying to help your child get ahead - which is the purpose of the pp in the first place - seems ridiculous. If they went along they might find an option to assist their child's learning or they might find it a complete waste of time. Go or don't go - it's entirely up to pp. Schools can't win these days.

Because then there will be outrage from (some) parents who weren't invited, mutterings about favouritism etc

There will still be mutterings anyway from some parents (heard plenty at DDs school about how 'unfair' HAP, subsided trips etc for PP kids were). But at least the school has a clear rationale.

Just as there will be some people, as shown on this thread, who will be offended if it is offered. Although it would be far more offensive to hand pick parents the school thought needed it as individuals.

I think, based on this thread alone, there's likely to be a high percentage of recipients of that letter who don't actually know what "pupil premium" means, so they will decide to go or not go based on other reasons like availability.

I do think this is a bit of a snowflake situation.

OP is not happy to admit her child receives pupil premium - well they do!

The reason they do is irrelevant - it’s a fact.

Why hide it? Are you ashamed? If so that is your problem.

I know lots of decent parents on pupil premium, usually do to being a single parent.

But maybe you should seek to remove the child save embarrassment?

Schools can’t do right for doing wrong!!

Just look at the research. I really don't know why everyone piled onto OP whose feelings are very much shared with other parents. A quick look at the research studies on PP shows that stigma felt is very real. Eg a 5 second look at this brought this up and there are many more.

"Selective case studies have been used to illustrate how some working-class mothers feel judged negatively by teachers and the school system, based on their marginalised (and sometimes multiple) social identities. Perceptions of stigma were recalled by parents, who felt this negatively impacted upon their engagement in their children’s education. They expressed feelings of powerlessness and in some cases internalisation of stigmatised traits. Recommendations to inform engagement strategies for schools to enable a more inclusive educational experience are made and areas for future research identified."

Link to the research paper please?

@Thekidsarefightingagain and there is plenty of research showing PP children outcomes are significantly worse than their non PP peers. So what do you do, just ignore that?

I must say that before participating in this thread I didn't realise the PP spending was nearly £3bn nationally. I'm actually quite impressed that the restrictions on how it can be spent aren't higher. Schools genuinely do seem to have discretion to meet the needs of their particular intake, or try to.

I had a parents evening last week and 4 pp parents spoke to me about how happy they were to have ingredients bought for them. Another students parent asked if one child could and one child didnt because of various situations. Another said do not worry we will.sort outselves. Because it is something we do to make life a bit easier for that cohort of kids im happy to sort what I can for them. I also dont assume. I ask. One family is pp due to fleeing DV and the other is a service child, another is a looked after child. All eligible for the funding for a wide variety of reasons

I think there should be stronger restrictions. My kids’ PP+ funding disappears into the school’s budgetary black hole

That one is - Suzanne Wilson, Kim McGuire
British Journal of Sociology of Education 42 (5-6), 775-791, 2021

Had a quick & a few papers came up.

Nobody has a clue what you're moaning about.

This, OP 👏🏼 they're not putting on food because they think you need it, PP parents tend to be less likely to attend things like parents' evenings anyway and students in this demographic do statistically do worse. (Edit - forgot to add, it's just a bit of a draw as the evening is an ask! I'd also offer a bit of food at an optional meeting I wanted people to go to/sit through)

Obviously statistics are general - I've taught students on pupil premium that are incredibly bright, motivated, with amazing hands-on parents.

They're doing the right thing giving extra support to PP students and making sure they're supporting the families as well. I've also taught lots of students who have no books at home at all, no space to do homework, parents who think school is pointless because they didn't enjoy it - they're who will benefit from it.

I do take your point about identifying info, it's tricky.

This isn't great. My old school was like that. They did put on a huge amount for pupils, all sorts of extra curriculars, attendance rewards tbf. I prefer my current one, pupils on PP have an allocated individual PP budget and can use it towards school books, trips etc.