Research School Network: Disadvantage, what disadvantage? Sonia shares the various EEF resources and tools used by the school to effectively execute their pupil premium strategy.

Amidst the organised chaos and the clarity of a new school year, there is always something beautiful about the opportunity to pause and reset our dials. It offers us time think deeply about the purpose of the education and what we want to provide for our students. For us, as a school in an area of high disadvantage this thinking always starts with knowledge that equity must sit at the heart of any curriculum offer. All students, regardless of their background, deserve to flourish and as Zaretta Hammond (2015) writes, we need to provide the intellectual environment where they can do so.

At St Matthew’s that environment comprises of leaders, who are committed to enacting evidence-informed practices. This is epitomised in our pupil premium provision.

‘What’s Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander’

The first iteration of ​‘Moving forwards, making a difference’ (see further reading), was released during lockdown, to support schools to plan to close the gap. The hope was that schools would use it to impact on its disadvantaged students; whom the evidence was pointing out had been hit the hardest. Since then, the models within this document has permeated every aspect of our planning, not only our disadvantage students for all of our students. The ​‘goose and gander’ adage was certainly realised, as we planned our curriculum provision, from Reception to Year 6.

The Tiered Model empowered us to position effective teaching and learning practices at the heart of this offer. In particular, it sign posted us to the suite of resources, which supported my school development plan (SDP) and later enabled the DfE Pupil Premium document to finally become a ​‘working’ document for whole school improvement. As a senior leadership team, we took time to examine each quadrant of the model and based on our individual school/​students need, plotted out our course of action, against the three areas – Quality Teaching (QT), Targeted Academic Support and Wider Strategies. In doing this, it was clear that if we were going to affect change, particularly against QT, we would need our professional development (PD), to be streamlined and agile. See the updated Pupil Premium resources here.

Developing professionals matters

The EEF’s ​‘Effective Professional Development’ guidance report offers support in designing and delivering PD and selecting external PD. Its content challenged us to implement a programme, underpinned by the ​‘do less better’ mantra. The ​‘mechanisms’ that particularly resonated with us, were ​‘developing teaching techniques’ and ​‘embedding practice’. What has been really positive is seeing sustained change in practices such as oracy, where teachers are now confidently engaging strategies, in all areas of the curriculum. The benefits and impact of this for our students have certainly been tangible. This sustained change, was replicated in our fluency teaching – see our EEF Voices from the Classroom video – Reading fluency in the primary classroom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNjyjdNyvT0.

Making the difference is a marathon not a sprint

Our knowledge of good implementation (see further reading), means that we are acutely aware that for sustained change to continue, we need to ensure that are practice are rooted and not and not a series of events. We continue to diagnose our student’s needs and adapt accordingly, with the knowledge that making the difference takes patience, time and must also have deep cultural shifts at its heart. A culture, where all staff are aware that with the best will in the world, we will never be in a position to say disadvantage, what disadvantage? What we can say though, is that we have the advantage and are fully committed to a rigorous focus on the best evidence-informed bets, for leveraging strong student outcomes.

To prompt further thinking, I have chosen a few questions from the new document, discussion prompts for governors and trustees. See the link here.


• What do current socio-economic attainment gaps look like?
• What specific challenges do disadvantaged pupils face within your school?
• To what extent is research evidence used to inform choices for how to manage Pupil Premium spending?
• How does your Pupil Premium strategy promote high quality teaching across your school?
• Are those priorities aligned with other school development plans and current practices?

The EEF Guide to the Pupil Premium ​‘Menu of approaches’: evidence brief and supporting resources is a practical guide to support schools to develop their pupil premium strategy based on the best evidence, and to meet updated DfE requirements. Click here to find out more.

Further reading:

1. The EEF has produced Moving forwards, making a difference: A planning guide for schools 2022 – 23, to support schools in their planning efforts in the academic year ahead. It proposes a tiered model that focuses upon high-quality teaching, targeted academic support and wider strategies (such as improving attendance) to aid school leaders’ existing planning efforts.

2. Using evidence is more likely to be successful if you give attention to the processes and planning around to achieve change in practice. The Putting evidence to work: A school’s guide to implementation is the home of our guidance report on exactly this, and includes a range of tools and an online programme, to support you to understand and use the materials in your school.

References:

Hammond, Z. (2015). Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students. Corwin: Sage.