Research School Network: How the latest EEF pupil premium resources can support school leaders How the latest EEF pupil premium resources can support school leaders

The challenges and complexities of school leadership are multi-faceted and whilst many of us embrace the challenge and thrive off the diversity of the role, it can sometimes seem that is made over-complicated with policy or accountability measures. Sometimes, our understanding of what works, based on evidence, can feel fragile when faced with expectations from outside of our organisation. We know that our best bet for improving the attainment of disadvantaged students is to improve the quality of teaching in our classrooms and therefore by default, the teaching ability of our teachers. Yet when it comes to writing a pupil premium strategy, many of us can feel the pressure to demonstrate that we are offering a breadth of strategies, interventions and opportunities for students that may not always be the right solution for the problem we are trying to solve.

Over the past couple of years, here at Manchester Communication Research School, we have worked with a number of schools to support them to develop an evidence informed strategy and approach to pupil premium as part of the Making the Difference for Disadvantaged Learners. Every single school leader who participates in that programme is driven by the moral imperative to break the link between family income and educational attainment. Many of them know that high quality teaching and learning is our best chance of success. Yet when it comes to identifying the strategies and approaches in which to achieve this, very rarely do they identify implementing effective professional development as a key area of focus. Arguably, this is the most essential strand to any strategy if we align what we know about the evidence and the impact of high quality teaching and learning on pupil outcomes.

As Vice Principal for staff development, I am acutely aware that I hold a bias towards the power and potential of effective professional development. I unashamedly admit that I was really excited to see the publication of the EEF guidance report into Effective Professional Development and the associated evidence review; I have read it more times than I have read my favourite novel (and coming from an English teacher, you can assume that is a lot!) That aside, I still had a reservation that this might not be seen as an area for proper investment and focus. Why was that? Was it because the associated challenges of PD such as time, expertise, competing priorities meant that there were other approaches that could be seen to have more demonstrable impact quicker? Or was it because the links between PD and pupil outcomes and too complex and therefore vulnerable to break and fail? Is it too hard to connect the dots?

So, when I saw the publication of the latest EEF resources to support pupil premium, including the pupil premium menu evidence brief, imagine my delight when I saw the links to Effective PD referenced generously throughout the document. In line with the tiered model, the document helpfully signposts where schools can find reliable and robust evidence to support the development of a strand of the strategy. Not only does this help with the completion of the strategy document, it also makes the links much clearer and easier for leaders to see the importance of effective PD in mitigating the impact of disadvantage.

Now, we can see the relationship between what schools should focus on and how they can implement it with specific mechanisms to maximise the chance of success. This document brings my two professional worlds together really neatly and I look forward to working with school leaders to overcome some of the previously mentioned challenges of PD to truly see the impact on pupil outcomes.