Research School Network: Seven principles for an effective Pupil Premium strategy … and signposting to supporting evidence informed guidance Seven principles for an effective Pupil Premium strategy

Seven principles for an effective Pupil Premium strategy … and signposting to supporting evidence informed guidance

The Pupil Premium aims to improve the educational outcomes of disadvantaged pupils and to narrow the persistent attainment gap associated with poverty. These disparities extend beyond education and employment, with higher attainment also linked to improved long-term health and wellbeing. An effective Pupil Premium strategy enables early intervention to prevent gaps from widening and remains a key mechanism for promoting educational equity.

Marc Rowland shares helpful steers and signposts to valuable guidance from the Education Endowment Foundation’s resource library to support leaders and teachers in translating their updated Pupil Premium strategy ​‘from paper to practice’, ensuring that all pupils, regardless of their background or circumstances, have access to high-quality, evidence-informed education.

1.Strategies should be something we have the capacity to enact effectively. They should not be a wish list. The more we try to do, the less effective we are to implement well. Many interventions don’t have an impact because they simply don’t happen (or don’t happen with fidelity). Focus on the things that are most in your gift.

Signposting: Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning: recommendation 5 – set an appropriate level of challenge to develop pupils’ self-regulation and metacognition

2. Our disadvantaged pupils are not a problem to be resolved. They are our children, and the most effective approaches focus on giving staff the capacity, expertise, professional development and the support to help pupils to thrive. Poverty puts pupils at risk of underachievement, not pupil premium eligibility.

Signposting: A School’s Guide to Implementation: recommendation 3 – use a structured but flexible implementation process

3.Children thrive in school when they experience meaningful success in the classroom. Success leads to motivation. Confidence is a cognitive process.

Signposting: Improving Behaviour in Schools: know and understand your pupils and their influences

4. Focus on underlying causes, rather than symptoms. Low attainment, inconsistent attendance are a symptom of underling, complex issues. They are a lag effect. You cannot intervene to a symptom or a label. The earlier that we address challenges, the better all pupils do at school.

Signposting: Special Educational Needs in Mainstream Schools: recommendation 2 – build an ongoing, holistic understanding of your pupils and their needs

5.Whilst diagnostic and summative assessment are vital, we also need to understand the challenges through observation of pupils and their learning experiences in the classroom. This is also key for evaluating the effectiveness of our strategies and how well they are being enacted.

Signposting: The EEF Guide to the Pupil Premium: Step 4 – deliver and monitor your strategy

6.There are some small things that we can do in the classroom that can make a significant difference to all pupils, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Checking for understanding, addressing misconceptions are addressed at the point of learning, not making presumptions of language comprehension or background knowledge. Ensuring that pupils are socially and academically included.

Signposting: Adaptive teaching in practice: using feedback to check understanding

7.Strategies are effective when they impact pupils as learners. Don’t mistake activity for impact. Use research evidence to shape practice and implementation. Our role is not to ​‘save’ pupils – but to empower them with choice and agency – so that school is somewhere to thrive, not something to get through.

Signposting: Effective Professional Development: ensure that professional development effectively builds knowledge, motivates staff, develops teaching techniques, and embeds practice

Implementing strategies, interventions, or new approaches is rarely without challenge. Schools operate within complex environments where leaders and teachers must balance competing demands on time, resources, and attention. Evidence suggests that sustainable impact is most likely when schools focus on the behaviours that underpin effective implementation, attend carefully to contextual factors, prioritise a small number of well-chosen approaches, and embed them with fidelity. Effective implementation of Pupil Premium strategies is therefore central to our collective efforts to reduce the link between family income and educational outcomes.

Marc Rowland