pupil premium, a few Qs

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Hi!

I was wondering if any lovely teachers who know a little about pupil premium could answer a few questions for me. I am doing some research on it but can't find these answers online.

I would really appreciate it if you could! As currently it is driving me up the wall!

What info were you looking for?

Mainly, when do you receive the funding - is it still quarterly?
Who is the main decision maker in what is spent where?
And any negatives of the funding, or things that you wish could be changed?

Would be fab if anyone could answer any of these! Thank you

www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium-2015-to-2016-allocations/pupil-premium-2015-to-2016-conditions-of-grant

All easy to find but the answers are

Annually
The HT with the Boards agreement
Negatives are a subjective matter down to an individuals opinion

www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium-2015-to-2016-allocations/pupil-premium-2015-to-2016-conditions-of-grant

All easy to find but the answers are

Annually
The HT with the Boards agreement
Negatives are a subjective matter down to an individuals opinion

I thought I would ask as a school I know receives 2 payments, not 4..
Also was hoping for some personal opinions :)

No problem, I charge £10 per response needed. How many opinions would you like? Buy four get one free.

Also there are two "premiums" at the moment sports and pupils. Perhaps that's where you are seeing two different payments.

At the moment, I'd be willing to pay the entirety of my bank (not much, student loan isn't in yet :D) to get this dissertation finished, I'll chuck in wine and chocolate too!

No one I have spoken to has said much on the negative, I suppose there isn't much as it is obviously helping the children, but some negative comments would help the argument much more. The schools I am in do not receive much funding, less than 12% eligible, so the people I have spoken to don't seem to offer much.

A negative would be the extra work it creates. A report has to be compiled yearly on how the money has been spent, that has to be up on the website. Our Senco has to track the interventions and closely monitor the impact as do phase leaders. We have had to write a PPG plan and have an auditor in because we had a bad year in 2014 SATS attainment wise although progress was good and Ofsted highlighted PPG pupils. It's sometimes difficult to know how to spend the money for high attaining PPG pupils so that they get as much benefit as those not attaining so highly. If I think of anything else, I'll let you know!

I'm a chair of governors and I'm not sure if it's a direct negative but you may be able to shoehorn it in-when free school meals were introduced for key stage one, many parents who would qualify for free school meals anyway as part of what used to be called deprivation premium (I think they've changed the name but I can't recall what to?!) stop declaring it as they get the school meal free anyway. This means that the school will miss out on this finding unless parents are encouraged to make the declaration. Many schools explain this over and over and send out the slips to ask for evidence etc. but don't get them back as parents can't see the direct gain to their child.

Military premium can also be a tricky one in as much as it should be spent only on that military child. It's not an enormous amount of money for a school if you only have one or two but must be accounted for separately and transparently so the benefit to those individual children can be seen-difficult to do when it amounts to less than £2 per day....not sure if that helps, it's a bit waffly!!

That shouldn't be 'stop declaring it' rather 'don't declare it' as those that have already declared attract the premium for six years after that declaration. I think. It's late! But you get the point.

From the negative side we put on lots of intervention sessions, buying in online tutorials which are run in school but after hours. Students who partake find them really useful. Provide transport home for those who use school buses.

Attendance is very poor, we spend ages chasing students, reminding them, calling parents, for no effect to occur. A huge amount of teacher time that isn't recorded or charged for.

A lot of eligible students don't necessarily need support in my subject but get extra. Others in the school are crying out for support but aren't eligible so get missed. For example I have had two students who were both pretty much straight A/A* across the board and the school struggled to apportion the money effectively.

This is secondary maths.

I am not anti it at all you just wanted negative viewpoints. For some it's a huge help for them but they need to accept the help.

I agree with kissandacuddle.
I work in an infant school and since the free school meals it is really hard to get parents to complete the form to get the funding because all the children get free school meals. They don't understand that there was more to free school meals then free school meals.

Thank you! This is really helpful! You are all amazing!!

For those saying it is hard t motivate infant parents to apply, our school provide a £20 school uniform voucher to each successful application. This can be deducted from the premium and the "voucher" used through the school office to order uniform for that child.

For more negatives, I've seen posts on here a few times that working parents on a very low income do not qualify for free school meals even though they also struggle to pay for food and so on, because they aren't on the right benefits. Their children do not get pupil premium funding, so don't get help with paying for school trips/clubs etc which means their children miss out.

I also teach some students whose parents had a minor blip a few years ago so qualify for PP under ever-6 and definitely don't need it now, but we still need to show we are targeting them.

Thank you all so much! This is so helpful :D