Category: Ofsted

DO YOU HAVE A PUPIL PREMIUM POLICY? IF NOT, YOU CAN GET A FREE MODEL PUPIL PREMIUM POLICY TEMPLATE AND GUIDANCE FOR SCHOOLS, COURTESY OF EQUITABLE EDUCATION.

9/3/2013

Equitable Education has produced a Model Pupil Premium Policy Template and accompanying guidance for schools to use. Both are available free for schools to download from the Guardian Teacher Network. Click here for the Model Policy Template and here for the accompanying guidance.

The Pupil Premium Policy and guidance have been written to support schools to produce a policy of their own. The policy enables all colleagues in a school community to be clear as to how this additional funding is to be used to reduce inequalities, what their role is in narrowing the gaps for disadvantaged pupils and how the school will demonstrate impact. The supporting guidance assists schools in tailoring the policy to meet the needs of their particular pupils. It also pulls all the latest research and tools they can use together in one place for ease of use saving time and effort.

The Pupil Premium Policy Template on the Guardian Teacher Network is a PDF. Should schools require a Word version to make it easier for them to produce their own, this is available on request from Equitable Education on info@equitableeducation.co.uk for a copy.

Equitable Education provides workshops for schools and their governing bodies to facilitate the production of their own Pupil Premium Policy, using all the latest evidence based research of ‘what works’ and evaluation tools that are available to use. We can support you in personalising the workshop, so that it is tailor made to meet the particular needs of your pupils eligible for free schools meals. Please get in contact with Sameena Choudry on sc@equitableeducation.co.uk to discuss the needs of your school and how we can support you in ensuring maximum impact in using your Pupil Premium effectively in narrowing the gaps for your disadvantaged pupils.

For further information on the Pupil Premium and what you as a school needs to meet the Ofsted and Pupil Premium Grant requirements, please read the blog posting below.

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WHAT ARE THE REQUIREMENTS OF SCHOOLS REGARDING THE USE OF THE PUPIL PREMIUM AND HOW ARE THEY HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR ITS USE?

9/3/2013

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Many schools are receiving additional funding for their pupils who are eligible for free schools meals through the Pupil Premium Grant. This is also given for children who have been looked after for more than six months and children of service personnel. The purpose of the Pupil Premium is to reduce the inequalities in educational attainment that currently exist between disadvantaged pupils and their more affluent peers.

The Pupil Premium Grant is not ring-fenced by the DfE and schools have freedom to use the Pupil Premium as they see fit, based upon their knowledge of their pupil needs.

‘It is for schools to decide how the Pupil Premium, allocated to schools per FSM pupil, is spent, since they are best placed to assess what additional provision should be made for the individual pupils within their responsibility.’　 DfE

As a school in receipt of Pupil Premium funding, you are accountable to your parents and school community for how you are using this additional resource to narrow the achievement gaps of your pupils. New measures have been included in the performance tables published annually on a national level. They capture the achievement of disadvantaged pupils covered by the Pupil Premium.

Under The School Information (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2012, Schedule 4 there is specified information which has to be to be published on a school’s website.
Section 9 of this regulation requires schools to publish:

‘The amount of the school’s allocation from the Pupil Premium grant in respect of the current academic year; details of how it is intended that the allocation will be spent; details of how the previous academic year’s allocation was spent, and the effect of this expenditure on the educational attainment of those pupils at the school in respect of whom grant funding was allocated’.

In addition, under the Ofsted Inspection Framework 2012, there is a stronger focus on improving the learning and progress of different groups and on narrowing gaps in standards. As a result, Ofsted carefully scrutinises the use of the Pupil Premium and the impact this is having on narrowing the gaps. Please note that this permeates across all four areas of the new Ofsted framework and your governing body has an important role in monitoring the use of the Pupil Premium and accounting for its effectiveness.

Equitable Education has produced a free Model Pupil Premium Policy Template for schools to use, with accompanying guidance. Both documents are available from the Guardian Teacher Network and can be downloaded here.

Equitable Education can provide workshops for your school and your governing body on the Pupil Premium. this which will be tailor made to meet the specific needs of your pupils eligible for free school meals. These workshops will also take you through the latest evidence based research of ‘what works’ and evaluation tools to ensure that members of your school community know how to narrow the gaps and can demonstrate impact. Please feel free to get in touch with Sameena Choudry on sc@equitableeducation.co.uk to discuss your school needs. We can also provide you with a Word version of the two documents produced by Equitable Education. These are available by e-mail from info@equitableeducation.co.uk

We look forward to hearing from you.

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DO YOU KNOW HOW TO ADDRESS THE SPECIFIC LINGUISTIC NEEDS OF YOUR ADVANCED ENGLISH AS AN ADDITIONAL LANGUAGE (EAL ) PUPILS, SO THEY ARE PREPARED FOR THEIR KS 2 WRITING SATS?

23/2/2013

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Over the last few years there has been either a significant reduction, or in some cases a cut in Local Authority services providing specialist consultancy support for teachers to address the needs of pupil’s for whom English as an additional language (EAL), even though many EAL pupils at Key Stage 2 continue to underperform, especially in regions outside of London. Some schools may have specialist EAL teachers employed who have the expertise to support teachers to raise the attainment of these pupils but more often than not it is often left to class teachers, who may or may not have relevant training and specialist skills to address the needs of advanced EAL learners.

Many teachers may not be aware of the research and resources that can support teachers in improving the writing skills of advanced EAL learners. The research on ‘Writing in English as an additional language at KS 2’, undertaken by Professor Cameron and Dr Besser at the University of Leeds on behalf of the DCSF is very useful. This was shortly followed by Ofsted’s ‘Could they do even better’ which identified the need for teachers to be aware of the specific linguistic needs of advanced bilingual learners, along with detailed case studies to illustrate the difference that effective intervention, addressing specific linguistic features, can make to the development of the writing skills of advanced bilingual learners. A few years later PNS developed materials entitled ‘Teaching units to support guided writing in English as an additional language’, for teachers and teaching assistants to support the development of writing of advanced EAL learners. Although these publications may now seem dated, they are in fact still very relevant and pertinent. They are recommended for use by teachers who wish to find out more about the specific issues their advanced EAL learners face in writing in KS2, and how they can support their pupils to do better in their KS 2 writing SATS papers.

Professor Lynne Cameron and Dr Sharon Besser analysed Key Stage 2 SATS writing papers in 2003 to see if there were any significant differences in the writing of Year 6 pupils for whom English was an additional language (EAL), with a specific focus on advanced learners and those for whom it was their mother tongue (EMT). They compared 264 scripts by focusing on text, sentence and word level. The 2003 scripts had two tasks - one story and a radio advertisement. The story writing task consisted of a set of pictures leading to a problem for the main characters, which pupils had to resolve and conclude. The shorter task was to write an advertisement for local radio to persuade listeners to buy a new toy.

Their analysis of the scripts are summarised below in tables from their publication (pages 11-14), with significant differences highlighted by the dark boxes.

Based on the above findings they highlighted that the following grammatical features may present particular challenges for EAL learners:

Teachers preparing their advanced EAL learners for KS 2 writing tests may wish to use the blank proformas included on pages 90-93 of their publication for analysing the writing produced by their own pupil’s. The publication also provides detailed annotated examples of the completed profromas, which the researchers themselves produced when analysing the scripts themselves.

The teaching units can be used by trained adults working with small groups of children in Years 2-6 or as part of quality first teaching in lessons.

Equitable Education is able to provide specialist advice and training to support all staff working with advanced EAL learners. For further information, please contact Equitable Education on info@equitableeducation.co.uk

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Seven specific characteristics of outstanding leaders who successfully close the gaps

15/2/2013

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During the course of over 25 years in education, I have been privileged to have had the opportunity to work alongside hundreds of primary and secondary schools leaders in Yorkshire. The vast majority of schools I have spent most of my career in are those which would be deemed to be in “challenging circumstances”[i]. These schools are the ones I proactively chose to focus my own teaching career in because of the potential to make a greater difference. Recently, I have been reflecting on the specific characteristics of successful leaders of challenging schools who I have seen successfully close the gaps in attainment. What is it that they do on a regular and sustained basis for their pupils and communities, which makes the difference between success and failure of a school and its community ?

There is much research on what constitutes successful school leadership.[ii] However, there has been much less research on the nature of successful leadership of schools facing challenging circumstances[iii] with attention being drawn to this subject only a decade ago. In 2009, Ofsted published two key reports[iv] outlining characteristics of schools which were outstanding and excelled against the odds, in terms of their intake of pupils and location. The same year the then DCSF also published two phase reports[v] with a main focus on white pupils eligible for free school meals. There seems however, even much less written about leadership of multi-ethnic schools. Following Gillborn and Gipps’[vi] seminal research in 1996, which highlighted the under-performance of some minority ethnic pupils, Blair and Bourne’s research[vii] in 1998 highlighted the characteristics of outstanding multi-ethnic schools.   Subsequent to this, the only other main research which focuses on successful multi-ethnic leadership was undertaken by Dimmock et al[viii] in 2004, followed by Walker et al,[ix] which used a case study approach of ‘good leaders’ of multi-ethnic schools, setting the challenges they face within an international context.   Currently, with the focus on closing the gap and raising attainment in schools near or below floor targets, many of whom are schools facing challenging circumstances, HMCI Wilshaw has ordered a review of “Access & Achievement”[x]. The purpose of this review is to focus on the issues facing urban leadership. He has also engaged an expert panel to come up with new and radical solutions to address the issues facing deprived communities. After a year of deliberations, the expert panel is due to report back in May this year.

Based on this research and my own observations of working closely with these leaders who had a proven track record in closing the gaps, I decided to reflect on what I thought were the most compelling specific characteristics they shared and came up with this list, much of which resonates with the research outlined above.

1.    Overarching commitment to fairness, equality and social justice.

This commitment drives the schools mission, values and practice in schools and is their ‘raison d’etre’ for leading schools in challenging circumstances. I have observed that that these leaders are confident and command respect from their school community, but at the same time have a sense of humility and modesty, with an eagerness of wanting to learn more about their often changing communities. They have high expectations of their staff, pupils and their communities and ensure that this is permeates across everything the school does.

2.    Distributed leadership at all levels

The demands of working in a school facing challenging circumstances is immense and one of the key ingredients is making sure that all leaders in the school passionately share in the Head’s vision and commitment to fairness, equality and social justice. This team of leaders play a pivotal role in ensuring that the many difficult issues they come across on a daily basis are dealt with promptly and effectively, without distracting them from the smooth and efficient running of the school and their core focus of delivering high quality teaching and learning opportunities for their pupils.

3.   Delivery of Quality First Teaching, with a high emphasis on literacy skills and the use of swift and effective interventions for those at risk of falling behind.

The leaders I am referring to relentlessly focus on the delivery of high quality first teaching by all their staff, from teachers to support staff, each with a key role to play in accelerating pupil’s progress and learning. They ensure that all staff are experts in teaching literacy, which is taught explicitly and consistently across the curriculum, with interventions carefully monitored for progress and impact. They create opportunities for their pupils and parents to engage in fun literacy activities, even when parents may be less confident in their own literacy skills or do not have the literacy skills in English. They are solution focused by using innovative strategies such as use of technology in the form of “Talking books” or using bilingual reading resources to overcome barriers.

Another key feature of these leaders is that they ensure that the curriculum offered to their pupil’s is reflective of their backgrounds and interests, including positive portrayals of diversity. This demonstrates to pupils and their parents that they are respected and their heritage is valued. A rich variety of enrichment activities are used as a way of enhancing the learning experiences of pupils and are carefully planned at key points in the delivery of the curriculum to actively support learning in a practical, fun and meaningful way. Often when affordability is an issue they use school funds to either subsidise or fully pay for the costs.

4.   Use effective and regular tracking systems which are not only disaggregated by different groups (i.e. gender, socio-economic status, ethnicity, language background and special educational needs) but also look at how structural inequalities can come together and impact on pupil outcomes.

They use their tracking data at regular intervals to monitor pupil progress and ensure that both quality first teaching and interventions are delivering faster than average rates of progress, which they know is essential for their pupil’s to get to age related expectations, as many of their pupil’s start at lower levels of attainment on entry. They use this tracking information to deliver bespoke and personalised learning suitable for meeting the needs of either groups of pupils or individual pupils. They expect their pupils to reach at least age related national expectations, irrespective of their starting points and although they are aware of both LA and national performance of particular groups of pupils, they continue to set expectations for them to reach the national benchmark rather than that of their peers, as they know this will perpetuate lower standards.

5.    They know each and every child, their background and circumstances.

They use this knowledge to ensure that the holistic needs of the child are met but without compromising on the high expectations they have of them.   They show “tough kindness with empathy” rather than expecting less of them because of their particular circumstances. On many an occasion, whilst on a learning walks, with these outstanding leaders they are vigilant and aware of their pupils’ needs and interactions. They also make it their business to know more about the personal circumstances of their pupils as do all Headteachers. However, in addition they make it their business to be knowledgeable of the extra learning their pupil's undertake at weekends and after school, including competency in other languages the pupil's may be learning or speak within the community and at home, as they can see the benefits of bilingualism as a tool for learning.

6.    Proactive engagement with the community

They recognise the important role that parents and carers play in the lives of their children, especially since they know that schools only have pupils for 15% of the time. They, therefore proactively look at ways in which the remaining 85% of the time their pupils are with their parents can be maximised.   They do this enabling their school to become a hub of the community, providing extended services in partnership with other key services so that wrap around care is available when needed. They also enable successful partnerships to be forged between their school and local complementary schools, who provide additional study support in language, religious or academic study. They work in synergy to meet the holistic needs of the same groups of children, with a collective emphasis on high attainment.

7.   They nurture and develop their own staff and governors and try to ensure that they are representative of the community their school serves.

These leaders understand that the school is at the heart of their local community and that pupils need to see positive role models from the community in its staff and governing body. They therefore, nurture and develop staff and governors by providing high quality professional development opportunities and coaching. This also assists in alleviating some of the difficulties they can face in recruiting and retaining staff and governors. In many cases, I have seen these schools develop strong partnerships with local universities and colleges who place trainee teachers in their schools. The advantages are that the school is able to train these teachers in both the generic and specific skills and competencies needed for teaching in urban schools, thereby having a ready pool of potential teachers to recruit from. They also benefit from having highly qualified additional staff in their school which means they can provide more focused quality teaching to their pupils, at minimal cost.

These observations based on my own working closely with these leaders are closely borne out by the research. However, the key issues is not the identification of these key characteristics but the translation of these into practice. We now have, more than ever before much evidence based research to guide us in what works the best. Take for example the latest Education Endowment Foundation, Teaching and Learning Toolkit Research which has shown that providing effective feedback is the single most powerful way of improving attainment. However, less than 3% of teachers in surveyed identified this as a top spending priority for the Pupil Premium. This example illustrates the problem. Therefore, the issue is even though we know the effective characteristics of outstanding leaders who close the gaps in their schools, how do we ensure more schools in similar circumstances have leaders with these specific outstanding characteristics? Bearing in mind the growing emphasis on school to support and system leadership to drive up standards across localities, it is difficult not to share some of the concerns highlighted by HMCI Wilshaw when giving evidence to a cross –party commons committee earlier this week. He stated “The great challenge for the future is to identify system-wide leaders for our poorest areas because at the moment we have got more good head teachers serving quite affluent communities who are national leaders of education who are asked to go into disadvantages communities to support them. I am not sure they have the necessary skills to do that. Some will, some won’t.”

I believe that the many of the leaders I have identified above, lead ‘outstanding’ schools according to Ofsted criteria. However, I have also come across many exceptional leaders, who will find it difficult to get this grading for their school in the current framework, even though the progress the pupils make is higher than the national average. Together, these leaders hold the key to raising standards in similar schools, where many of the systemic problems lie. Recognising the specialist and distinct competencies and expertise they have should form the cornerstone of any strategy in driving forward standards for closing the gaps and raising standards for all.

[i] i.e. those schools which face multiple challenges in terms of their location (inner city and/or in areas of high social deprivation); student mix (higher percentages of pupils eligible for free school meals, mobility, minority ethnic pupils, new arrivals with English as an additional language needs); facing staffing difficulties in terms of recruitment and retention of key staff; parental attitudes and sometimes histories of the schools themselves with low records of attainment and achievement and therefore under pressure from either being in an Ofsted categories or likelihood of falling into one as a result of being below or near the floor targets.

[ii] Alma Harris’s et al’s “10 strong claims about successful leadership”, which built on their earlier work “7 Strong claims about successful school leadership (2006).

[iii] Alma Harris & Chris Chapman “ Leading for improvement in challenging circumstances”, 2003.

[iv] Ofsted “12 outstanding schools: excelling against the odds” published in 2009, with one for primary and the other for secondary, highlighted the characteristics of schools and leaders that may a significant difference.

[v] “Extra Mile: Achieving Success with pupils from deprived communities”.

[vi] “ Recent research into the achievements of ethnic minority pupils”.

[vii] “Making a difference: teaching and learning in successful multi-ethnic schools”.

[viii] “The leadership of multi-ethnic schools: What we know and don’t know about values driven leadership”.

[ix] “Priorities, strategies and challenges: Proactive leadership in multi-ethnic schools”, NCSL.

[x] This new report follows on from two earlier ones, with the same name undertaken by Ofsted, first in 1993 and then a decade later in 2003.

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PUPILS NOT CLAIMING FREE SCHOOL MEALS - IMPLICATIONS FOR SCHOOLS AND LOCAL AUTHORITIES

19/1/2013

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The Pupil Premium is a valuable additional resource given to schools for each pupil on their school roll who is eligible for free school meals (FSM), looked after children and those from families with armed forces. The Pupil Premium is directly linked to eligibility for free schools meals, which is used as a proxy indicator for determining disadvantage.

The Pupil Premium is aimed at addressing the current underlying inequalities that continues to plague outcomes for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds in England. When the Pupil Premium was introduced in April 2011 schools received an additional £488 for each of its pupils eligible for free school meals. In April 2012 this was increased to £600, and further increases this year have already been announced so that it is now worth £900, amounting to £1.65 billion in the financial year 2013-2014. By 2015 the Pupil Premium will be worth £2.5 billion of additional money coming into schools, which in these austere times is a considerable amount of money and if used effectively could close the gaps in attainment and go quite a way to transform many young people’s educational outcomes and life chances.

In September 2012 Ofsted conducted a survey of 262 school leaders to seek their views on the Pupil Premium and to find out how it was being used and the impact this resource was having on pupil outcomes. The report was called The Pupil Premium: How schools are using the Pupil Premium funding to raise achievement for disadvantaged pupils. As part of its many recommendations Ofsted stated:

“Schools should continue to seek ways to encourage parents and carers to apply for free school meals where pride, stigma or changing circumstances act as barriers to its take-up”.

However, this important recommendation seemed to have got lost in the discussions and focus on how the pupil premium should be used to ensure maximum impact. In addition, although this report made this recommendation it did not actually identify how many pupils who were eligible for free school meals and were currently taking it up, which areas of England this may be an issue for nor the characteristics of the type of pupils who this may apply to. Therefore, a recent report published by the DfE has revealed some interesting information with regards to estimates and proportions of pupils not claiming free school meals even though they are entitled to it.

The researchers Samaira Iniesta-Martinez & Helen Evans in the DfE Research Report called Pupils not claiming free school meals published in November 2012, used data from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) Tax Credits and Benefits data alongside School Census data published by the DfE. The researchers used School Census data to look at the patterns of pupils actually claiming FSM which they call the registration rate and how this varies by age, region and LA, and they were able to estimate the likely number of pupils who were not claiming free school meals but were likely to be eligible. The report also provides valuable information on the likely characteristics of pupil’s not claiming FSM.

From their analysis they estimate that around 200,000 pupils which is 3% of all pupils aged between 4-15 years old in maintained schools are not claiming FSM even though they appear to be entitled. They derive this figure by comparing the number and percentage of pupils who are registered to claim FSM from the School Census data in 2011- 2012 which was 1.2 million pupils or 18% of 4-15 year old pupils against the benefits data from HMRC which suggests that around 1.4 million pupils or 21% of pupil

The report also highlights variations in the age profile of pupils claiming FSM with younger pupils more likely to be entitled to claim FSM compared to older pupils (25 % of 5 years olds compared to 18% of 15 year olds), with the proportion of those not claiming FSM being the same across both primary and secondary.

Interestingly, they also found wide variations across regions with the following LA’s showing full registration rates for FSM eligibility:

Birmingham
Bolton
Darlington
Halton
Hartlepool
Islington
Middlesbrough
Newham
Plymouth
Stockton-on-Tees
Stoke-on-Trent
Sunderland
Tower Hamlets
Wigan

In comparison, the following 10 LA’s had the highest non-registration rates:

Bournemouth 29%
Buckinghamshire 33%
Richmond upon Thames 33%
Suffolk 32%
Surrey 32%
Bath and North East Somerset 31%
Bromley 30%
Poole 30%
Milton Keynes 30%
Bracknell Forest 30%

The research report also provides a useful checklist of pupil characteristics, not directly linked to FSM but which lead to a lower likelihood of claiming FSM, after other characteristics have been taken into account. These are pupils:

living in a less deprived area;
attending schools with a lower school FSM rate;
from families with higher status occupations (i.e. professional rather than routine occupations);
living in a family with higher parental qualifications; and
of Chinese ethnic origin.

They also point out that there is some evidence to suggest that families entitled to FSM while in some part-time work are less likely to claim FSM than those on out-of-work benefits.

Ofsted in its report, last September stated that:

“The average amount of Pupil Premium funding received by all schools nationally in 2011–12 was £30,940 and the median was £19,520.[1] An average-sized secondary school with the average proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals would have received around £77,000. An average-sized primary school with the average proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals would have received around £23,000. The average amount of Pupil Premium funding received by the schools who answered additional questions on HMI-led inspections was £49,056, and the median was £38,052.”

Bearing in mind the increased figures for this year and forthcoming years involved in the Pupil Premium, schools and LA are advised to read this valuable DfE report, consider the implications for their area and develop a strategy based on their analysis and need, to ensure that all the pupils who are eligible for free school meals are actually benefiting from it and more importantly that this resource is used so that it has maximum impact for these pupils. Colleagues may wish to read an earlier post Effective classroom strategies for closing the gap in educational achievement for children and young people living in poverty, including white working-class boys on this blog, as well as read future blogs which will focus on this area.

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Equitable Education

Equitable Education's blog keeps you updated with the latest news and developments in closing the gaps in education. We regularly share best practice materials and case studies of proven strategies to close the education gaps, along with the latest research from the UK and internationally.

The blog is written by Sameena Choudry and the views are entirely her own or of her co-authors when written with colleagues.