Pupil premium
What impact will the pupil premium have?
The pupil premium was a phrase used by all three main political parties in the run up to the recent election. The coalition government has made it one of their key policies, but how effective will it be? Headteacher Update looks into what it might look like and how it will need to be implemented in order to make a difference
D
o you remember Educational Priority Areas (EPAs)? They were a key proposal in the Plowden Report (1967). Under the chairmanship of Lady Plowden, the report’s recommendations
included that in order to reduce the effects of social disadvantage, positive discrimination would be necessary through establishing EPAs. Teachers working in an EPA were paid an additional sum of money and there were some small-scale building programmes. But they were not without their critics and eventually they slipped on to the scrapheap of abandoned educational initiatives. The link between disadvantage and low attainment would seem to
remain as keen as ever. So it comes as no surprise that now, over 40 years later, we are hearing something similar in terms of the need to positively discriminate, this time through money following the pupil rather than the teacher. The promise of pupil premiums has hit the headlines and generally had a positive response. Less controversial than the government’s plans for free schools and academies, they have been a little overshadowed. No doubt this will change as we receive further information about what exactly they might entail. But how much do we actually know about the factors that cause
this low attainment, what can schools realistically do, and will pupil premiums make the difference?
What causes low attainment? The effects of deprivation are profound and touch upon the way in which children act and think from the earliest years. A Joseph Roundtree Foundation report, Poorer children’s educational
attainment: how important are attitudes and behaviour? looked into some of the underlying issues that lead to this big difference in results. Four key themes emerged from the research: n Children understand that there is a social order and their own place in it.
n Children from poorer backgrounds recognise that they might not succeed at school.
n Children from poorer backgrounds seem to experience school more as a controlling coercive place where education is “done” to them.
n Poorer children tend to find it more difficult to take part in out-of-school activities.
During the early years the research suggests that 25 per cent of the
attainment gap among small children is explained by differences in the early childhood caring environment and 41 per cent from the parents’ education and other background characteristics. The 33 per cent remains unexplained although it is likely that cognitive factors do have an impact. What is key here is that it is the home learning environment which is crucial in addressing differences in attainment. In later childhood and the early teenage years the key factors are: n The level of belief in their own ability – that school is important and that their own actions can make a difference.
n Whether children are involved in anti-social behaviour and their tendency towards hyperactivity or conduct problems.
n Not being bullied. The expectations and attitude of the mother continue to be important throughout. There is a positive impact if she:
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n Believes her actions can make a difference. n Has aspirations for her child attending university. n Has positive recollections of her own school experience. The report suggests that the aspirations of all 14-year-olds are generally high but that they are often not being transferred into reality.
Photo:
educationphotos.co.uk
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