Is your Pupil Premium Strategy making a difference?

Schools Week have published an article questioning whether a school’s pupil premium strategy is genuinely helping schools make better decisions for disadvantaged pupils, or are they a compliance exercise?

They report that a regional review of more than 550 primary school pupil premium statements across the north east suggests the answer is not straightforward.

On the positive side schools are actively engaging with evidence when designing their strategies, less positively, some of the approaches with the strongest evidence for improving attainment and narrowing disadvantage gaps remain underused.

• Ninety-four per cent of statements referenced the Education Endowment Foundation’s teaching and learning toolkit
• Very few schools were spending on approaches with weak or unclear evidence
• Schools typically referred to just two of the EEF’s five highest-impact, low-cost strategies
• Oral language and reading comprehension approaches featured strongly, reflecting the centrality of language development.

However, feedback appeared in fewer than half of strategies. Metacognition and self-regulation featured in just over a quarter and peer tutoring appeared in only two per cent of statements, all well-established approaches with extensive supporting evidence. They therefore ask: why do some of the most effective strategies struggle to move from research summaries into classroom practice?

They note that:

• In many weaker examples, the toolkit was referenced but not meaningfully engaged with
• Strategies were listed, but without a clear explanation of why they were chosen, how they would be implemented or how leaders would know whether they were working
• Documents became descriptive rather than strategic, a catalogue of activity rather than a plan for improvement.

The strongest statements began with careful diagnosis, often drawing on standardised assessment data in English and maths alongside attendance and pastoral information. They selected a small number of approaches tightly aligned to identified needs. Crucially, they explained what staff would do differently in classrooms, how implementation would be supported, and when leaders would review impact and make any necessary adaptations.

See the Schools Week article for more information.