Education CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Family Action

About Family Action

Family Action has been a leading provider of services to disadvantaged and socially isolated families since 1869. We work with over 45,000 children and families a year by providing practical, emotional and financial support through over 100 services based in communities across England. A further 150,000 people benefit from our educational grants and informational service. We tackle some of the most complex and difficult issues facing families today—including domestic abuse, mental health problems, learning disabilities and severe financial hardship.

Family Action provides family support services which work with parents and children to ensure that vulnerable children are in school and that children and young people with emotional, attendance or behavioural problems or illness or disabilities or caring responsibilities outside school are supported in school.

To contact Family Action about this submission please e-mail Rhian Beynon Head of Policy and Campaigns at Rhian.beynon@family-action.org.uk.

Executive Summary

Family Action is responding to the Education Select Committee Inquiry into the Role of School Governing Bodies relating to the following points:

the purpose, roles and responsibilities of school governing bodies, within the wider context of school governance and leadership;

the implications of recent policy developments for governing bodies and their roles;

the effectiveness and accountability of governing bodies;

the relationships between governing bodies and other partners, including local authorities, Academy sponsors and trusts, school leaders, and unions; and

whether changes should be made to current models of governance.

The most vulnerable school pupils include those such as young carers, chronically ill and disabled children, children with special educational needs and children with other difficulties. Our two reports on young carers and school and children living in Troubled Families with attendance difficulties highlight the issues facing these children.

While the Pupil Premium is of huge potential benefit to supporting the learning of these children, awarding the responsibility for implementation of this financial support to individual schools without adequate duties of accountability potentially undermines the Government’s intention to support vulnerable pupils.

While school governors do have a duty of fiscal responsibility in respect of spending of the Pupil Premium and Ofsted has a duty to inspect the spending of the Premium there is no accountability upon school governors to report publicly on how schools are responding to the needs of vulnerable pupils.

Our own experience as well as research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report shows that in order to provide support for vulnerable families affected by chronic illness or other difficulties multi-agency cooperation is often needed between schools and health and social care services.1 Yet, such collaboration is often missing. Thus, to enhance the cooperation between education, health and social services, and share knowledge of the local population of disadvantaged and vulnerable children and families, an effective join up between these agencies is needed. This could be achieved through further accountability of school governing bodies for instance to Local Health and Well-being boards. This would enhance the impact of spending on the Troubled Families Programme, for which improving school attendance and reducing exclusions are key criteria.

Governing bodies should ensure that the Pupil Premium funding, intended to raise the attainment and aspirations of disadvantaged pupils, is used appropriately and effectively. The research conducted by Sutton Trust shows that rather than a universal approach to the distribution of finances, specific interventions are likely to be more successful. Thus, school leadership including governors should monitor what their evidence indicates is effective in improving teaching and learning and work out what costs are associated with these approaches.2

Evidence further discussed below shows that schools have mixed feelings about the effectiveness of the Pupil Premium on vulnerable pupils. The fact that there is no direct link between school spending and the outcomes for pupils suggests that the level of efficiency differs from case to case depending on the wider context of the particular school.

Due to the cuts of other finances as well as the flexibility given to schools when deciding how to use the Pupil Premium, schools often use Pupil Premium to maintain or enhance their conditions, rather than directly focusing on the needs of vulnerable pupils. Thus, only 1 of 262 school leaders feels that Pupil Premium has significantly improved the way they do things. Many schools feel that there is a lack of transparency in terms of how local authorities develop the funding.3

Our Be Bothered! report highlights that despite the improvements in the method for identifying vulnerable pupils, young carers are one of the disadvantaged groups that often remain unrecognized. Because social stigma of vulnerable children prevails, young carers often remain reserved about expressing their problems and the support they need.4

Although exclusion contributes to the complexity of the problems young carers and other vulnerable children face, only a minority of schools adjusted their exclusion policies after the introduction of Pupil Premium.

Recommendations

School governors should have a duty to ensure that schools identify and address vulnerable pupils and provide them with appropriate support.

Governing bodies should ensure that schools monitor the impact of their spending of the Pupil Premium on the outcomes of the identified children.

The Pupil Premium should not only reach vulnerable pupils but also lead towards a real improvement in their school performance. Schools should use the Pupil Premium for its original purpose: to improve the attainment of disadvantaged pupils, rather than for other purposes. Schools should try to find strategies to remove cultural stigma and encourage vulnerable pupils and their parents to actively seek support in their schools and ensure that their vulnerability does not effect their attainment at school.

While we support the Ofsted inspection criteria we call for further accountability on school governing bodies to scrutinise and be publicly accountable for the response to vulnerable and disadvantaged children, for instance through reporting to Local Health and Well-Being Boards

Governing bodies should encourage effective communication between schools and parents of vulnerable children in order to recognize and meet the individual needs of the vulnerable child.

School governors should ensure that the connection between free school meals and regular exclusions are monitored and regularly revised in order to adjust exclusion policies for the needs of vulnerable groups.

Local authorities and health agencies and schools need to establish effective communication. This will lead to a greater transparency as well as understanding as to how the funds are allocated.

The impact of the Pupil Premium on children from disadvantaged backgrounds

1. The Summary for Schools Spending the Pupil Premium conducted by Durham University suggests that financial spending on vulnerable pupils will not necessarily improve their situation and their achievements. The fact that there is no direct link between spending on schools and outcomes for pupils suggests that spending money effectively is complicated. The research shows that the level of efficiency is often individual, depending on the context, the school, the teachers and their level of training and knowledge, and the areas the improvement is focused on.

2. Therefore, in order to achieve the purpose of the Pupil Premium analysing how the money is spent is crucial. Yet, the Ofsted survey shows that the majority of school leaders are very cautious in assessing Pupil Premium’s effectiveness. Only a minority were able to provide evidence that would confirm their achievements. One third of primary schools and a quarter of non-mainstream schools stated that the governing body of their school had a limited or no specific focus on spending the Pupil Premium.

3. While some school leaders stated that the Pupil Premium has helped them to maintain and enhance the provision for disadvantaged children as well as rise the awareness of the needs of this group, others felt that due to the cuts in other funds, they could not use the Pupil Premium for its original purpose thus the needs of vulnerable groups have been given little attention.

What is Pupil Premium used for?

4. While the flexibility given to schools to use the Pupil Premium provides them with the benefit of tailoring an individual approach that suits best the needs of their school and their pupils, the funding is often used in a wide range of areas with little focus on pupils personal development (see figure 1). Particularly low attention has been given to parent support workers, behaviour support workers and counsellors.

5. According to the survey conducted by Ofsted, only one in ten school leaders stated that the Pupil Premium has significantly improved the ways they do things. Many admitted that they do not separate the finances given for the Pupil Premium from their budget and use it rather to maintain or improve their conditions.

Figure 1

WHAT IS PUPIL PREMIUM USED FOR?

Answers provided by 119 school leaders responding to the telephone survey and 142 school leaders responding to additional questions at inspection.5

6. Most commonly, the Pupil Premium has been used to pay for teaching assistants. Yet, the evidence brought together by Durham University suggests that teaching assistants have a very low impact on children’s achievements and improvement.6 What is more, the most recent study in the UK argues that low attaining students are doing less well with the support of teaching assistants in the core subjects of Maths and English. Around 25% of schools that participated in the Durham University research stated that the funds have been, at least partly, used to pay existing or new teachers usually involved in one-to-one teaching support (see figure 2).

The impact of the lack of multi-agency cooperation

7. A report conducted by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation “Education and Poverty” stresses the importance of multi-agency work and argues that to tackle educational issues there is a need for cooperation between professionals from education, healthcare and social services. While the report points to the positive impact of multi agency work on behaviour where schools collaborate with child/family services, it also argues that where the joined-up nature of the problems families face are not considered by any of the services the family receive they fail to provide adequate support for vulnerable families.7

8. Our own experience shows that there is often a failure by commissioning to join up health and social care models and adults with educational services. Often chronic illness in families has a profound impact on mental health-and wellbeing which is crucial for appropriate parenting and for children’s participation at school. Yet, many families affected by chronic illness do not have the resources or resilience to respond to such difficulties and need additional support. Family Action provides professional home-based family support which provides extra assistance and sets up links between schools and health.

Raising awareness in order to remove cultural stigma

9. Ofsted research shows that the cultural stigma of applying for free school meals persists so many parents do not apply for the support they are eligible for. Our Be Bothered! Make Education Count for Young Carers report found out that only 18% of young carers have been approached by their school. Many young carers remain silent about their caring role because they fear being perceived as “different”.

10. Our research showed that 79% of the respondents to our survey thought that young carers would receive better support if teachers and peers were more aware of their caring roles.

11. Research conducted by Diabetes UK and Clic Sargent suggests large numbers of ill children are denied the support they need to keep up with their education whilst receiving treatment. As a result 35% of chronically ill children face bullying after returning to school with nearly 50% experiencing isolation from their peers.

12. Our Be Bothered! report investigating the problems young people with caring responsibilities face in education and developed in collaboration with young carers, parents and teachers found that 49% of young carers feel that their caring role has had a negative effect on their school work. 52% of the young carers we interviewed had missed school with 60% struggling with punctuality.

Exclusions and vulnerable groups

13. Our research highlights the particular problems for young carers and the danger of punishing some of the most vulnerable pupils for absence due to their caring roles. Often, causes of absence are not recognized and punishment in terms of detention or extra homework only compounds the problem. Moreover, given the pressure on schools to improve attendance, vulnerable pupils often feel lack of understanding and high pressure from teachers to be in school.

14. One in eight respondents to the Ofsted survey stated that Pupil Premium has had no impact on their approach towards exclusions. One in three mainstream schools stated that the Pupil Premium has raised awareness about the possible links between exclusion and free school meals.

The lack of transparency

15. The Ofsted survey concluded that non-mainstream schools in particular felt that there is a lack of transparency in the way local authorities devolve Pupil Premium finances. Further uncertainty has been highlighted in the way local authorities consulted these schools and pupil referral units as to how Pupil Premium should be allocated. Thus, schools often do not understand the basis on which local authorities devolve the Pupil Premium

Method of identifying children eligible for Pupil Premium

16. While the new method of identifying children eligible for the Pupil Premium has generally been perceived as more effective in addressing low income families and those moving in and out of difficulties, more should be done to identify other vulnerable groups such as young carers.

17. Our research shows that vulnerable groups often need an individual approach tailored to their particular needs. Failing to recognize and address the particular needs of vulnerable groups, such as young carers may only compound their problems.

January 2013