Research School Network: Effective Pupil Premium Provision Back in the Classroom – reflections on our webinar

by Dr Caroline Creaby

This week saw the third of our free webinars on the theme of being ​‘Back in the Classroom’. The webinar focussed on Effective Pupil Premium provision. In the webinar we explored the evidence around the Pupil Premium attainment gap in England before moving onto how best design a Pupil Premium strategy. Drawing on the EEF’s tired planning model, this was split into three parts: teaching, targeted academic support and wider strategies. This blog will just give you a brief flavour of the themes and ideas discussed at the event. A video of the webinar is available below.

The gap
The first part of the webinar explored the Pupil Premium attainment gap in England, drawing on data from the EEF’s Pupil Premium Guide, the EEF’s Attainment Gap report and the EPI Education 2020 report. The data used powerfully illustrate how many months disadvantaged students are behind their peers in terms of attainment at each phase of education from Early Years to Primary and to Secondary, and the subsequent impact on qualification and life chances.

Having examined some of the data, issues and nuances surrounding the Pupil Premium measure were explored including reference to the FFT’s Invisible Group report. In addition, the session then addressed some myths commonly associated with Pupil Premium provision that school leaders should be aware of.

Teaching
The next section of the webinar turned to the first section of the EEF’s tired planning model: teaching. Effective teaching has a considerable impact on the attainment of all students, and particularly disadvantaged learners. As such, this should be a key focus of any PP strategy, and hence why it takes top billing in the EEF’s Tiered model.

In terms of selecting an appropriate focus of teaching and learning within a school, identifying the school’s and the students’ needs first is paramount. Once these are identified, the EEF’s Teaching and learning toolkit for secondary and Early Years is an excellent starting point. It provides teachers and school leaders with an accessible summary of international evidence on approaches to teaching. This is a powerful in terms of leading to conversations about effective classroom strategies. For example, Feedback and Metacognition are considered best bets which, when done well, can lead to 8 additional months progress. Disadvantaged learners have the most to gain, though all students gain from these strategies.

Other useful evidence sources referred to in this section of the webinar were:

1. EEF guidance reports

2. The EEF School Planning Guide

3. EBE’s Great Teaching Toolkit Evidence Summary

Targeted academic support
Following on from teaching, the next section of the webinar focused on targeted academic support. Such support has the potential to make a big difference to learners but in order to do so, it’s critical to know your students and their needs. Throughout the webinar, the importance of processes in school to identify specific learning needs was emphasised. Disadvantaged students are not one homogenous group and so, in order to close any in-school attainment gaps, and to raise the attainment of students, targeted support should be addressing specific needs.

Providing effective targetted support isn’t without its challenges and an exploration of the Chatterbooks initiative illustrated this in particular.

A valuable resource for any teacher or school leader considering the evidence behind specific interventions is the Promising Projects section on the EEF’s websit. Interventions are categorised by cost, strength of evidence and additional months progress made.

Wider strategies
The final section of the webinar addressed the importance of wider strategies which complement teaching and academic support. Examples of wider strategies include addressing students’ social and emotional learning, behaviour and supporting parents’ engagement.

Parental engagement was examined in detail and included reference to a DfE report on the topic alongside the EEF’s Parental Engagement guidance report.

When it comes to parental engagement, depending on the phase of education, the EEF recommends different approaches to how to engage parents successfully. More generally, a point was made about the importance of engendering a sense of belonging for families and students. This was a theme that emerged from the EPI’s recent report; some disadvantaged learners have a lack of belonging and self esteem relation to school which forms a barrier to learning and progress. This is likely to exist in some for parents also. Reference was made to a Best Bets podcast episode about the Pupil Premium with Marc Roland in which he made a similar point.

Finally…
Examples of the tiered planning model from other schools can be founds here

And an editable planning model can be accessed here

A recording of our webinar is available to view below.

https://vimeo.com/478488940/740f733c21