Pupil Premium Leadership Structure - Are you placing enough emphasis and rigour on the Disadvantaged

After reflecting on the changes made to the way DP’s were presented in RAISEonline last year (this will continue in ASP), and the absolute impetus ofsted now place on the cohort, a more focused and aligned approach was needed to support these pupils and raise their profile.

For us this started with a leadership restructure that placed the DP cohort at the very centre of everything we do as a school. We took the following actions and implemented them from September 2017 -

Firstly the school appointed an Assistant Headteacher (me) who’s main responsibility and appraisal targets are linked explicitly to improving the progress, attendance, exlusions, CEIAG of the DP cohort. The new role has sufficient non-contact time allocated to it to deal with the needs and analysis of the cohort. The role had previously been an associate assistant headteacher role.

The increased non-contact time allows for greater rigour of tracking interventions, PP spend and interacting with families/pupils with the greatest needs. No brainer! this is having a positive impact already!

The next action we took was to set up a seperate committee of the governing body called .... you guessed it the ‘Pupil Premium Committee’. The reason for doing this is now governors are asked by Ofsted or Leaders of Pupil Premium reviews, what impact the spend is having on the pupils. They need to know the main strengths and weaknesses of the cohort and more importantly .... what as a school you are doing to bolster progress or remedy underperformance. Our PP committee will meet half termly and I plan to feedback progress data for each year group, attendance, exclusions and PASS assessment attitudinal scores.

During the half termly meeting the governors will help decide what strategies have worked (linked to data), what we need to abandon, and what we need to implement the following half term. They will also sit on the panel for any exclusions for DP’s. So in a holistic sense they will be integral to everything we are doing which is Pupil Premium.

When I present the information to governors in the meeting this will be mainly in graphical format, but they will also receive half termly updates of our PP spending plan so that they can see progress over time - see below a sample of how this is set up.

(Success criteria is and should always be compared to the non-DP national measures. The spending plan should also been linked where possible to EEF/high impact research).

Another action we took was to create a pastoral and academic collaborative. This essentially is a block of time protected every week where the pastoral team, safeguarding officer, SENCO, deputy head for teaching and learning, curriculum deputy and directors of key stage meet. In the meeting we marry up and explore pastoral needs of the DP’s and cross reference with progress.

This was a big move for us this year in helping us to fully understand our in school cohort. This make sense because as you are aware the turbulence factors outside of school for DP’s have more of an impact on them than their wealthier counterparts.

During this time we look at high profile pupils we need to act upon and wrap support around. We also have adopted PIXL’s Covian warboards in the locations we meet.

Moving down the structure .... we now have changed the job description of our House Leaders to now become absolute advocates for the DP’s. Each house leader is accountable for approximately 50 DP’s in their house and are set appraisal targets relating to this. They challenge and support pupils/parents with progress, attendance and pastoral data. They meet with myself every two weeks to strategically plan the support for the DP’s in their care. They hold and facilitate meetings and conduct home visits. They have 2 additional periods of non-contact time and no form groups to generate capacity for this.

The next action was that we appointed a DP learning mentor who works within KS4

to support the DP’s. This colleague works with the most disaffected or vulnerable Pupils. The DP learning mentor works partly in the community, conducts home visits,

helps with organisation, orders uniform/kit, runs a breakfast club, runs a community hub one night a week in the area we draw most of our DP from, acts a surrogate mother at parents evenings and college visits. Basically is the saving grace for pupils who would otherwise miss out.

The last part of the structure is we have implemented a whole school assertive mentoring programme for every single DP. (More information about this will follow in my next blog)

To finish ..... is your current structure actually disadvantaging the disadvantaged?

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