DfE finds that higher parental incomes buy better educational outcomes

[noblegiraffe]

In a piece of research that will surprise no one, it turns out that children of wealthier parents do better at school.

However, while it is obvious that PP students and especially FSM pupils perform particularly badly, pupils from below-median-income families perform lower than, but more in line with children from wealthier families than with PP pupils.

What the DfE really want to know in this consultation, however, is whether they should refer to below-median-income families who don't qualify for PP as 'Ordinary Working Families'.

consult.education.gov.uk/school-leadership-analysis-unit/analysing-family-circumstances-and-education-1/

Good to know that they are spending their time and effort focusing on the key issues in education at the moment.

And, although I don't think additional targeted funding, being made available, in itself, for schools to tackle educational inequalities, is detrimental, I do think it creates a mindset that reinforces the perceived likelihood, that those who the funding is aimed at are not likely to succeed. This is further reinforced by those educational professionals who purposely further emphasise this likelihood of failure in order to protect the school's access to additional funding. It can potentially go so far as educational professionals distorting actually need and managing progress, so it is not so successful the additional funding is lost,
but successful enough not to draw too much attention to the wasted resource.

The only solution to this is rigorous identification and continuous reassessment of need, along with complete transparency over how additional funding has been utilised.

Actual need. Typo.

I'm talking about needs which don't fall under the SEN umbrella. I don't see any conflation of SEN and PP apart from your posts. In my (admittedly limited) experience of schools SEN and PP are run separately, though some children may be in both groups. Schools don't have any influence over whether a student is PP, and limited influence over SEN diagnoses.

As for tailored solutions, of course they are best. But it is helpful to have a starting point. With an individual child an approach may work, or it any not. But if we had a number of suggestions which help the majority of students, that would be an excellent starting point. For example, homework clubs noble mentioned to provide calm and quiet working areas for students with chaotic home lives (I work in secondary and really believe a suitable study space is very important, particularly when working towards formal exams). Or making stationary and uniform available to students whose parents cannot afford it. These options have been used in my school to good effect, and very few children make use of both.

Amelia, I have read numerous PP reports where SEN type interventions were detailed, as to how the budget was spent. Surely these interventions should have been funded from the SEN budget? Not doing so means schools get used to putting less money aside for SEN and also that PP qualifying factors get conflated with SEN.

I would say the correct starting point for tailoring interventions is correctly identifying individual additional needs, not looking what other interventions have worked for children belonging to a similar socioeconomic (but diverse) group.

What sorts of things are you describing as an SEN-type intervention?

Reading interventions, multisensory programmes, professional services such as Ed psyches, programmes to increase cognitive skills, coordination programmes, social skills programmes, are some examples of what I've read in PP reports.

Oh and extra 1 to 1 and small group TA support.

And I have an awful suspicion, that children in receipt of PP would attend these interventions when they might not really need to, alongside children who did need to but were not in receipt of PP, in order to allow these workshops/interventions to be run and the PP spending justified.

Schools putting using the low level SEN funding (from the school budget) for these interventions would avoid the above happening.

This is how I strongly suspect (scenario outlined above) my DC's individual funding from a Statement of SEN was used to benefit other groups of children. My child was often put into small groups with other children who had additional needs (but no statement), needs which were often even conflicting because my DC's funding paid enough for full time 1 to 1 support. I knew this because I spoke to their parents. One parent even told me she was told her child was getting 'extra help' in lessons, at parent's evening from my DC's allocated full time one to one LSA! I let it go because I knew my child's independence was progressing well with no where near full time 1 to 1 help. It took a while and some rather strained conversations before the school would admit this progression in the paperwork though.

And this statement (and more like it) from a thread a few years ago suggests this type practice is quite widespread:

"If a school does use the money to employ an extra member of staff to do small group work and the small group then includes children who get FSMs and some who don't, I can't see the problem. The target children are benefitting, and so are a couple of others who need help. I find it hard to understand why anyone would begrudge help to a child who needs it just because they aren't on FSMs and because the government decided to use a very blunt instrument to decide who is most deserving of help."

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/amiibeingunreasonable/1935596-To-think-that-a-pupil-premium-should-be-paid-for-children-who-live-in-home-where-none-of-the-parents-have-qualifications?pg=11

I don't get your problem with the last example.

Imagine you've organised a school trip for PP students. PP money has paid for the minibus and the trip itself is free. You've got a couple of spare seats on the minibus.

Are you really saying that you'd let those seats go spare than put a couple of non-PP kids in them?

I don't have a problem with other children benefitting from interventions, other children's funding has paid for (through PP targeted towards them), altogether, as long as this is done with complete transparency.

You need this transparency in order to get accurate numbers regarding the qualifying group's needs and how they have benefitted from the PP funding. In other words the transparency is needed in order to get a full picture of the target group needs and how schools have met them. Otherwise the children who qualify for PP's educational needs are distorted - they are conflated with a higher proportion of SENs than is realistic.

This type of practise can also be a slippery slope. Where do you draw the line? What if half the children benefitting from a PP funded intervention do not receive PP? What if more than half the children benefitting do not receive PP? Can it still rightfully be claimed to be a targeted intervention? Should not, at least some, of the funds come from the SEN budget? What about the children who receive PP who do not have SENs, who are attaining towards the upper end of what is expected, for children of their age? Should they not benefit from the funding targeted towards them, in order to improve and stretch their attainment further?

But intervention isn't always about SEN.

noble no, but you were asking about the interventions, that I considered SEN interventions, that were/are funded by PP. The comment, from the previous thread, referenced small group work and help, terminology and practise which most usually refers to many types of SEN intervention.

One of the major problems I have with PP funding is the PP qualifying factors being conflated with SEN. This does appear to be happening in the examples I have given.

I agree that sometimes PP money is used to fund SEN interventions for PP pupils, because the intervention would otherwise not happen due to lack of school funding.

I also agree that non-PP students are being piggy-backed onto PP interventions in order to spread the benefits.

I'm not convinced that PP students are being indundated with SEN interventions that they don't need and won't benefit from simply to provide money for SEN interventions that other students need that can't be afforded otherwise.

However, in none of this am I being convinced that Pupil Premium money is a bad idea. I'd much rather we had the money, because the other option moving forward is unlikely to be better targeted money, rather less money with more red-tape and admin attached.

Well, that is understandable, as your experience and motivations no doubt differ from mine, noble.

When I realised that my DC's progress was effectively managed and severely down played, in order to hang on to the significant funding his Statement provided, I was shocked and horrified. At one point my child was placed in a reading group with children who had reading difficulties when my child could read and comprehend texts well before school entry. My child resorted to hiding his reading books, as they were also books aimed at infant aged children, and were labelled as such, when he was half through juniors. This was an extremely difficult problem to tackle, nobody was going to readily admit what was going on. I dread to think how families qualifying for PP, with all the stress their day to day life will inevitably entail, would be able to advocate adequately for their child in a scenario such as this.

So I know, first hand, the damage a lack of transparency has the potential to cause. And also how this type of practise, that of 'playing the system', is completely insidious, professionals kid themselves that no harm is done.

And distorting the needs of the children that qualify for PP, in this way, certainly does not benefit them. It does not help educational professionals learn about what the real barriers, to learning within the PP group are, if the targeted funding and resulting intervention is not wholly targeted towards the whole of this group.

clarity you just can't extrapolate your DC's experience with ECHP funding to criticise PP funding. Your DC's progress was artificially depressed in order to keep receiving funding. This can't happen with PP as the funding is allocated differently, funding isn't removed if a child is doing well.

In addition, there is no benefit to the school in artificially depressing the progress of PP students and there is a definite disincentive to the school in using PP money in a way that would not help PP students, especially if used in a way that would boost the performance of other students.

PP money is supposed to be spent narrowing the gap between the achievement of PP students and the other students in the same school. And if the gap is not being narrowed, or if PP students are continuing to perform poorly compared to the rest of the cohort, Ofsted will come in unexpectedly and kick the school into a category.

My DC had old style Statement providing individual funding, noble (not an ECHP). The new funding formula where a school has to provision map, in order to demonstrate spending an initial spending of £6k was what enabled us to get the school to admit some degree of his progression and the fact that 1 to 1 or indeed small group support was no longer required. So I cannot say the extra paperwork does not provide a very important function.

You mention the gap not being narrowed being picked up by OFSTED. OFSTED did not really prevent the country wide practice of Statemented children's individual funding being misappropriated and used elsewhere (there was a 1000 post thread on here about this). Country wide, the gap is still pretty wide, isn't it? And that gap is particularly wide between the PP qualifying students and those who very narrowly miss qualifying for PP.

And don't OFSTED also want ensure schools are doing all they can to narrow the gap between students with SEN and the rest of the students? - the reason I think the comparison is worthwhile.

Can I ask a couple of questions which are probably naive ( and I have googled to try to find the answer) .

What is the correlation between FSM and PP. I ask because a good friend of mine has a nephew who qualifies for FSM. He will not let his mum do it because he feels "embarrassed" . Am I right in thinking that if he claimed it , it would help the school more widely because they would get more PP ( and I realise 1 child is not going to make or break) . And actually - can I also ask, is a child singled out or identifiable in any way simply because they have claimed FSM - i.e. are his fears groundless?
I apologise if this is a naive question. School in question is a comprehensive school.

You mention the gap not being narrowed being picked up by OFSTED.

Yep, I know at least one school where an inspection was triggered because of this. PP performance data are also reported in the school league tables. SEN data aren't.

OFSTED are supposed to inspect the SEN provision though. Although I see what you mean about the importance of good quality data. Hence I think there is a need for complete transparency over who exactly benefits from interventions funded by PP money. If the group receiving benefits is at all different from the PP group there should be adjustment for this.

Basilisk schools are absolutely desperate for pupils who are eligible for FSM to claim this. The money will not just be allocated while FSM are claimed, but Pupil Premium is given for 6 years after the end of FSM, so it's worth thousands.

There will be a flag on SIMs so that teachers will know that he is FSM. If he does actually take school dinners then it depends on the school as to how the free meals are managed. Many schools use fingerprinting technology so he would 'pay' for his meal in the same way as other students. There is no obligation to have free school meals if he currently has packed lunch. He might get given some stuff for free, like revision guides, but teachers usually try to do this discreetly. He would probably get help with paying for school trips.

Thanks , Noble , that's helpful. Will pass on. My friend and her family and nephew are not highly au fait with the UK education system, and I am lucky enough that DS did not need FSM ( I hope that doesn't come across badly - I apologise if it does) - so thanks .

I will google SIMS - not sure what that is

Basilisk.