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.

Because the majority of pupils benefiting are PP. In addition it can be beneficial to the PP pupil to have other students in the intervention that they work well with, these pupils are not always PP.

But if PP money is used to raise attainment in non PP qualifying students, alongside PP qualifying students, then attainment is simply raised across those sectors and the attainment gap between those sectors is not addressed.

Don't get me wrong, I think all student's educational needs should be addressed. Not doing so is divisive. Targeting support towards students who qualify for PP over targeting support at any additional (not necessarily SN) educational need is divisive.

Saying support is targeted towards students who receive PP, when in reality some of the support is used to benefit other children, is doubly devisive.

It comes as no surprise, that parents of children with SNs and SENs frequently talk (on here) about seeking to get their children into schools and getting their children into schools, in more socioeconomically disadvantaged areas, than where they live. Simply because they know these schools will have a higher level of PP funding and run more interventions tailored to their child's SEN and SNs, than a school local to them which receives less PP funding.

How does this tackle socioeconomic disadvantage? Or result in a truly comprehensive education system? It basically creates and perpetuates the same socioeconomic divides grammar schools do, by creating pseudo-grammar schools through different means.

then attainment is simply raised across those sectors and the attainment gap between those sectors is not addressed.

And similarly if attainment in the non-PP group dips and the gap is narrowed in the wrong direction that's a problem.

Schools are scrutinised, research is being conducted, best practice is being shared. It's early days yet.

Schools are scrutinised, research is being conducted, best practice is being shared. It's early days yet

Precisely why I think it is worth truly considering the issues I have raised. By that I mean not suppressing, negating or ignoring them. Only that way will true clarity be gained over the nature of differing educational needs and attainment along with how they should be tackled.

And similarly if attainment in the non-PP group dips and the gap is narrowed in the wrong direction that's a problem.

But do you agree, noble, using PP funding to raise attainment in non-PP groups does nothing to address the attainment gap between the PP group and non-PP groups? Also that if the attainment of the non-PP groups was raised more than the non-PP groups, the gap between them would actually be -widened?

I'm afraid, if schools are tasked with positive discrimination, this has to involves discriminating, in order to even out the chances of the targeted disadvantaged group. This means those outside this group will inevitably be placed in a more disadvantaged position than they originally were - the advantage they had over the target group is removed.

Of course the above might be conducive to social mobility but only in the sense that disadvantage is displaced rather than eradicated.

After all if we are talking about levelling a playing field this involves adding more soil to the dips from the raised areas. If more soil was added evenly everywhere, the field would still contain undulations.

Of course the ideal scenario, for social equality, would be for everyone to be able to achieve the top grades. However the question would then be, would the children who receive the least amount of resource, in order to do this, be able to achieve more if they received an equal amount of resource? In this way would the standards of what constitutes a high level of attainment be lowered or suppressed?

Like I said, if the intervention is used for a majority of PP students, then the gap (if the intervention is effective) will narrow even if the non-PP students receiving the intervention improve. E.g if you have ten PP kids and 2 non-PP kids in a booster class then the gap will narrow as in the full cohort you usually have non-PP kids as the majority.

Otherwise we end up with empty seats on the bus because of a refusal to put non-PP kids in them, this is a waste of public money.

E.g if you have ten PP kids and 2 non-PP kids in a booster class then the gap will narrow as in the full cohort you usually have non-PP kids as the majority.

But will the gap narrow as significantly than if all the PP funding was targeted at the PP qualifying group?

Regarding the field levelling analogy, if there are dips on top of the hills, earth should be taken from the hills, in order to level these, not from the low ground. If earth keeps being taken from the low ground levelling is not achieved.

Otherwise we end up with empty seats on the bus because of a refusal to put non-PP kids in them, this is a waste of public money.

Spend less and hire a cheaper mini-bus?

Or have smaller, more focussed interventions, less frequently?

it's not like you can say 'I've got 13 seats on the minibus but only 11 PP kids so I'm going to abandon the trip because an 11-seater minibus doesn't exist.

I appreciate that noble.

But are there actually many scenarios where PP funds the majority of trip costs?

The usual scenario is that a trip is organised and made available to a large and diverse group of students and those who would have difficulty paying the costs inform the school. The school then checks to see if the money can come from PP funds.

And hiring a TA - if they've helped all the PP pupils who need it, would you prefer they sat and twiddled their fingers ignoring the hands up from non-PP kids?

In the same vein, only some children receiving FSM (in secondary and half of primary) does not mean any of the rest of the children normally get their meals for free. This does not stop the canteen from cooking anything - even though with bulk quantities costs go down. All that happens is the meals for children, not eligible for FSM, are paid for by other means (in this case the parents).

And hiring a TA - if they've helped all the PP pupils who need it, would you prefer they sat and twiddled their fingers ignoring the hands up from non-PP kids?

No, I'd prefer; 1)either they were only hired for the time needed to help the targeted group or 2) part of the funding for their wages was taken from funding applicable to the other children that were helped (most usually either AWPU or SEN budget).

Parents can't be forced to pay for school trips, only asked to make voluntary contributions.

Technically I suppose a school could attempt to calculate exactly what proportion of time a TA spends helping PP pupils compared to non-PP and then pay them proportionately out of the staffing budget, but as the school staffing budget has been cut to the bone and the school says they can't afford it, should the PP pupils lose their TA?

Technically I suppose a school could attempt to calculate exactly what proportion of time a TA spends helping PP pupils compared to non-PP and then pay them proportionately out of the staffing budget, but as the school staffing budget has been cut to the bone and the school says they can't afford it, should the PP pupils lose their TA?

Schools do, already, have to provision map for SEN provision. Well they do, if students with SEN are not 'piggy backed' onto SEN interventions funded by PP money. The provision mapping is important for establishing the actual costs of their additional needs, in order to apply for High Needs Funding.

Staffing budgets are established from this type of accounting. It will undoubtedly be inaccurate and get set too low, if schools attempt to bi-pass this type of accounting by misappropriating funds from elsewhere and not declaring this.

The government isn't going to give a school more money just because they set their staff budget higher.

Teachers are being made redundant, TAs are being made redundant, support staff are being made redundant and pastoral staff are being made redundant. Do you think that a head can afford to be picky enough to say 'actually that TA spent 5% of their time helping non-PP kids, we'll have to sack them because we can't afford that 5%'?

Well, unfortunately, we are talking about a situation that has gone on for years and years, noble.

A lack of trust for school's SMTs was clearly evident from the supporting documentation accompanying the SEN funding reform. The required provision mapping, implicit in the new SEN funding formula, was devised to tackle exactly the type of fudged accounting and 'playing the system' effectively redirecting significant amounts of money, which has accompanied funds targeted for additional needs for decades.

I don't think the answer to the problem is to continue fudging the accounting. This way money is not guaranteed to go where it has been targeted or needed. How can effectiveness of a funded course of action be, if the money is being spent elsewhere? The result could very well be, as before, and result in more compulsory paperwork and cuts to funding.

No, clarity you are talking about your experience with your DS and extrapolating it to an entirely different system of funding that is scrutinised in a different way that has only been around for 6 years.

should the PP pupils lose their TA?

And this would not worry me too much, as a parent. Some of the TAs assigned to my DC were positively detrimental to his progress. This is why I initially kept quiet when they were allowed to 'help' other children. It allowed my DC to actually progress!

It was no surprise when I read the research that showed children, who spent a lot of time with the TA had lower attainment.

I also know full well TAs (paid for by individual funding) are often used to serve the teachers, rather than the children. I've done work in schools whereby the TAs have spent too much of their time photocopying or putting up displays, or on playground duty, in order to be able help the children they have been assigned to through special funding, adequately. Either that or all the most disruptive children, with unmet additional needs, were effectively 'dumped' in a corridor with an inadequately trained TA, and as a result received very little teacher input.

No, clarity you are talking about your experience with your DS and extrapolating it to an entirely different system of funding that is scrutinised in a different way that has only been around for 6 years.

The lack of transparency is apparently the same though.

Other children benefitted from my child's SEN funding. The benefits to my child being assigned additional funding were negligible for years.

Other children are benefitting from PP funding. The attainment gap between PP qualifying children and children who do not qualify for PP is still far too wide.

Seems like the same sort of factors at play to me....

We are talking about children here, not little objects with funding marked on them. It is unethical to have a resource marked 'PP students only' packed unused in a box while another student who would benefit greatly from that resource looks on longingly but is prevented from using it because she is wearing the wrong badge.

We are talking about children here, not little objects with funding marked on them.

Couldn't agree more. Why are schools, in your own words, "absolutely desperate for pupils who are eligible for FSM to claim this"?

It is unethical to have a resource marked 'PP students only' packed unused in a box while another student who would benefit greatly from that resource looks on longingly but is prevented from using it because she is wearing the wrong badge.

It is doubly unethical to use PP students as a 'cash cow' and not be fervently determined to use the funding assigned to them, as it was meant, in order to correctly determine and meet their individual and diverse educational needs, in order to significantly narrow the established gap in attainment between them and other pupils.

So what you are saying is that the TA should sit doing nothing once the PP students have been helped and the minibus should drive off on the trip with the empty seats and the PP student should have no one to work with in their intervention session because it would be doubly unethical to have it otherwise?

So what you are saying is that the TA should sit doing nothing once the PP students have been helped

If that is happening regularly, noble, the TA could either be employed for less time or the target students could be stretched further with extension work.

the minibus should drive off on the trip with the empty seats

No, extra places on the trip are paid for, in the usual manner (by parents) on a first come, first served basis. This is what happens in most schools...

the PP student should have no one to work with in their intervention session because it would be doubly unethical to have it otherwise?

Smaller groups means the intervention can be more focussed. Different schools could also work together, to form larger groups for collaborative work, within PP interventions.