Pupil Premium - Just4SBMs

P u pil P r e mi u m

Using the Pupil Premium to make a real impact Alan Cowley explains how SBMs can use the Pupil Premium to influence the costeffective adoption of ICT, helping raise achievement and academic progress

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ast year, academics at Durham University published the Sutton Trust Toolkit on strategies to improve learning and raise achievement among disadvantaged children. The toolkit takes a dispassionate look at over 20 different strategies commonly used by schools and concludes that some, such as grouping by ability, block timetabling and school uniforms appear to have absolutely no impact on learning at all, indeed, the last two were actually seen to have a negative impact in some cases.

The report quotes hard research evidence that turns conventional thinking on its head by challenging some assumptions that many of us will find hard to accept – such as that teaching assistants have very low or no impact on attainment for a very high cost.

One of the strategies that can add value to learning is the use of ICT. The report says that that it can add an additional

One of the strategies that can add value to learning is the use of ICT four months’ progress in one academic year per pupil. Of the six strategies that are rated above ICT, all of them can be enhanced by the use of ICT. With the level of funding for the Pupil Premium rising to £1.25bn (£600 per pupil) this September, doubling to £2.5bn in 2013/14 this could be a good time for schools to re-examine their ICT strategy and re-visit their ICT

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policy, and plan ahead to exploit the educational and fiscal advantages whilst the funding is still there.

Fundamentally, education is about change. In order for learning to take place, someone’s understanding or knowledge has to change; schools are even judged on the amount of change that they bring to each pupil over the space of a key stage or two. As someone who sees part of their role as helping schools to successfully accept and adopt change, I am frequently saddened by the levels of fear that I encounter from individuals within education who are afraid of change and the way in which this fear actually influences decisionmaking within schools, impacting negatively on the life-chances of young people.

Last year, while at a secondary school as part of an independent consultancy visit, I was being

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given ‘the tour’ by the headteacher.

Lessons were in progress as we walked down long corridors.

Such is the design of most modern schools that the view into each room was basically the same; immediately beyond the door was the teacher’s desk with a whiteboard on the wall behind that. In some classrooms the teacher was visible, addressing the class, in others they were obviously working with individuals or groups. All classrooms were equipped with data projectors and whiteboards. On the whole, it was what you’d expect to see.

Half-way down the third corridor I stopped. I thought that I had noticed something unusual about the classroom we had just passed and then the penny dropped. “Did I just see a blackboard in that classroom?”

The headteacher smiled and explained that we had just passed the classroom of a teacher who

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We had just passed the classroom of a teacher who had felt threatened by digital technology and did not wish to relinquish the blackboard had felt threatened by digital technology and did not wish to relinquish the blackboard. I asked if the teacher in question had exclusive use of the classroom and what happened when other teachers used the room or supply teachers were called in to cover the teacher’s absence. I was assured that the projector and whiteboard had been installed in the classroom but rigged for delivery on the side wall.

I asked him if, when he observed this teacher’s lessons, he considered them to be outstanding or good. His response was “Sometimes, but not reliably so”.

You’d be amazed at how frequently I encounter schools that are working around teachers who feel they cannot cope with what they see as the onslaught of new technology. My challenge in such situations is well-rehearsed, and always the same. “Let’s imagine that you’re feeling unwell, go to your GP, who passes you on to a specialist at one of two local hospitals, who diagnoses something very serious but says that the surgical procedure is very complex and does not guarantee success; in short there’s nothing

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that he could do for you. You go home and tell your family and friends, one of whom says that they know someone else who had exactly the same problem, who went to a specialist at the other hospital who uses new technology and techniques. The friend was as good as new within a couple of months and is totally cured. What would you do, and how would you feel about the specialist you’d just seen?”

The answer is pretty obvious, as is my response: “Why then do we think it is OK to allow one teacher out of a hundred or so, to opt out of the benefits that we know can be delivered by new technology, when the methods they are currently using are not working effectively? Lives might not be lost but how many life-chances are being affected by allowing this, and what would you say if it was your child on the receiving end?”

On each occasion the head knows what the answer has to be.

It often just needs someone else to point it out before they start the painful process that is grasping the nettle.

I was privileged to be seconded to Becta to lead the national introduction of Online Reporting to Parents and then worked with both ASCL and the NAHT to train thousands of their members and staff from their schools on the introduction of the initiative. I lost count of the number of times that I found school leaders saying “Oh, we’ll never get Bill to register his classes online. It takes us all our time to get him to do a class register on paper!”, or, “Oh that won’t work in our school, several of our staff don’t ‘do’ email. We’ve tried but they just don’t log on to the system.” Sadly, most of the time this information was shared as if was expected to be viewed as a source of wider amusement.

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It’s almost as if it’s OK for school leaders to accept a Luddite approach from some colleagues to ICT, it’s as though it is treated like so many other fly-by-night education initiatives. But it’s not.

It’s not only here to stay, it’s here to get bigger and bigger and to totally alter the way we live our lives – and the way we educate our children.

Digital communication is important to all families, regardless of their income, and many see it as a priority for their household It’ll come as no surprise that the most common reason I’m given by teachers opposed to the adoption of ICT in schools is that some families can’t afford the equipment or the connections. To a very large extent this is a myth. You may recall the Becta Home Access programme that succeeded in getting 270,000 laptop computers with internet connection into the most deprived homes in the country? An independent report commissioned by Becta and published by SQW Consulting in December 2009 revealed that 45% of all the households that received a laptop already had one. Obviously there were benefits to be derived from the fact that the child concerned could have access to the laptop when they needed it, rather than when it was their turn, but the message is clear. Digital

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It has always been assumed that the cost of a laptop was a step too far for many families we allow ourselves to accept that parents have to provide some items for their children?

For many years now it has been widely accepted that ‘equipment’ and specialist clothing would be provided by parents, unless they were from disadvantaged backgrounds. So to what extent would it be truer to say that, in 2012, education is free for some pupils in compulsory education?

For many years now it has been widely accepted that ‘equipment’ and specialist clothing would be provided by parents

communication is important to all families, regardless of their income, and many see it as a priority for their household.

It is also time to ask questions about an associated issue that is often used to block the adoption of ICT in schools – cost to the parent. It was the 1944 Education Act that first established the principle of the right to free education for all pupils in compulsory education (up to the age of 14); a principle that we follow even today. But do we?

How accurate is this statement today? How closely do we adhere to this, and to what extent do

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I’m old enough to remember being the ink monitor at primary school, making sure that before the start of the day all the individual ink wells were properly supplied with enough ink for us to use our dip-in pens. My parents however had to pay for my uniform. Most parents do so today, along with sports kit, aprons and ingredients for food technology. I also doubt very much if there are many teachers in the country who could cope if every member of a class turned up without a pen to write with. Perhaps the notion of education that is free for all, whilst an excellent guiding principle in itself, is a notion that we have been prepared to play with and adapt over the years, without straying too far from in the process. It has always been assumed that the cost of a laptop was a step too far for many families.

Which brings me to the Pupil Premium. Currently it stands at £480 per qualifying pupil per year, and goes up to £600 per

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pupil in September 2012.

I know many schools that have flirted with the idea of the paperless school but have been stopped by concerns about affordability. How can you ask parents to shell out £400 on a laptop for school?

I also know schools, both primary and secondary, where they have introduced a digital curriculum, asking parents to provide laptops where they

can and paying for those who can’t out of the school budget.

These schools are reporting a tremendous engagement in learning from their pupils and from their parents.

The e-Learning Foundation is a charitable foundation that was established in 2000 to close the digital divide and “ensure that all children have access to learning technologies when and where they need them, both at home and at school” (www.elearningfoundation.com). They say that they now have a package where they can provide a laptop for every pupil in your school for just £2 per week each, and the Foundation handle all the admin and money collection.

Uptake shows

The Pupil Premium is naturally an easy way to ensure that all eligible pupils have their own computer to use both at school and in their home that this is an amount that parents are very happy to pay.

The Pupil Premium is naturally an easy way to ensure that all eligible pupils have their own computer to use both at school and in their home.

As you know only too well, the Pupil Premium is not there to be spent as part of your overall budget. You will be expected to account for it and show value, especially in a secondary school context where pupils move from one teaching group to another several times a day; the task of pinpointing dedicated provision is extremely hard.

Perhaps the digital revolution is the ideal way of using this funding wisely to not only provide the hardware but also a continual supply of online resources that will enable your school to translate the funding into meaningful progress.

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