Pupil premium - not benefiting my child

[TTCer2018]

Hi, I wondered how others have got on with how their pupil premium is used at the school?

My child get it due to being adopted. Whilst my child's learning I fine at the moment, I do feel he could benefit for it being used to help him progress in confidence/socially. He goes to two after school clubs run by the school which we pay for. I have emailed to suggest they consider using his pupils premium for this (it would only be a very small amount of it, but quite a big help to us too)

They've replied to say to phone then tomorrow so they "can explain how we as a school use it", which I known is going to mean they just tell me they put all the premiums into a pot to pay for teaching assistants.

I don't actually mind some of it going towards this as I'm happy to help the school, but I don't think it's right none of it directly benefits him.

It's so frustrating that reading online, it seems schools have to show the money benefits the children, but it doesn't have to be directly? They can just swallow it up into staffing funds, when it was originally started to help children at a disadvantage to move forward

Has anyone had luck with getting the school to change this attitude? And also can I withdraw consent for them to claim it? I don't want to do that but if I am able to, I might like to remind them that I could.

Thanks in advance for any advice

No you can’t stop the school claiming the money.

As AdventureBegins says:

The school have to record the child as post LAC on the January census. This then triggers the payment. The £2,300 funding is then paid directly to schools.

The census day is this Thursday the 17th January and so schools need to have the eligible children recorded on the system by tomorrow (may be too late for some schools depending on how they do this)

So if you have a post LAC child and you think the school either don't know or are not claiming you need to raise it tomorrow.

Adoptive parent here.

Before you go in, print out the guidance linked above which clearly states to what extent ex-LAC PPP is to be clearly spent on the child.

Look on the school website to see how they say PP money in general is being spent.

Think hard over whether your DC is having any interventions or ELSA that you may have overlooked. Other children can 'piggy back' onto it, but it should not be part of the 'general offer.

Listen to what they say first.

Stay firm but reasonable. Say you don't mind if your DC doesn't have need of all the funds for some to be spent elsewhere, but your DC does have needs, and it would really help you for them to fund XYZ for them because it will benefit them by ABC.

(They can be used to subsidise clubs. Our primary let PP kids do a drama club free as it helped self confidence.)

At the end, if you aren't happy, say so politely, and say you are going away to think/research some more as your understanding is different from the school's.

I'm not sure about different types of PP or what other schools spend it on but I work in a nursery school where the outdoors is our main focus. We have a high ratio of children eligible for PP and spend the money on fleeces, waterproof trousers/coats and wellies so every child can access the outdoor environment.

Tbh even normal PP has to be shown to have impact on the child it has been provided for. The school I’m a governor at has a tracking system for all PP or LAC or SEND children-they have provision mapping and have to have an impact. Whether that be breakfast club to get them in on time, Rd Psy, SALT, music lesson, after school interventions etc. The trickiest thing to do is to spend PP money on high achieving children who don’t need interventions-there we look to enhance their experiences such as going to the science museum, receiving the student newspaper etc.
The use of funding has to be on the school website also.
Funding can’t just go for a TA as it were unless there was a specific reason and the impact of that could be shown clearly for the group/children they worked with.
I would definitely be asking to speak to whoever heads up inclusion and PP

The school will have a LAC policy and there will be a named member of staff and a named governor.

This is tricky- as a PP says, PP+ for previously LAC is paid directly to schools with the rest of their PP funding. Schools must demonstrate how it is used to impact on the educational outcomes of previously LAC on the school roll.

However, guidance published last year is clear that it is not a personal budget for each previously looked after child. There are fewer checks in place than there are for the LAC PP+ which is paid to the Virtual Head of the authority which looks after the child, who then passes some or all of it on to schools in line with what is written in the child’s personal education plan. Every Virtual Head has a slightly different system.

Although PP+ is not a personal budget, it’s useful to speak to school about how Ofsted will view the impact of the funding on your child. The Virtual Head of the authority in which your child goes to school (not of the LA they were in care to) now has a duty to offer advice to parents, guardians and schools around previously looked after children; it would be worth contacting them for advice in this situation.

Relevant guidance, para 39

I believe they should tell you what it's spent on even it's towards a class ta which enables individual reading time for your dc. We got a full breakdown of how DD's disability money is spent at college and even at university they wrote first asking if they could apply for funds then wrote to tell us what it funds (1:1 support for an hour each week and drop in 9-6 daily, including a common room with kettle so they don't have to deal with the busy student union). Always ask, transparency is all we ask for.

I’m with MrsElijah. As a school governor with responsibility for pp and pp plus, this is exactly what we do. The spend is tailored to every child. Every child’s parent is invited to a meeting to discuss needs. We check progress and our interventions religiously!

We will listen to parents but parents should not think they can dictate how the money is spent. We certainly don’t spend it on our standard TA compliment. In fact research has shown TA intervention isn’t the best use of pp money in many cases. Partly because many TAs are not trained to deliver the interventions some children need.

We look at the needs of every child and if they need confidence boosting to improve their wellbeing and learning we look at how this can be done. We also evaluate if it has been a success and change tactics if we need to. So OP, do have an exchange of views and try and agree what measures will be helpful without going in with a list or plan.