Pupil premium and SEND: learning without labels
- cathypotter100
- Jan 5
- 7 min read
Updated: Jan 14
This is a slightly updated version of what Marc Rowland and I wrote in Feb 24.
Children, pupils, students are not at risk of underachievement because they are ‘Pupil Premium’ / SEND or any other label they may be given. They are at risk of underachievement because of the impact of socio-economic disadvantage on their learning, wellbeing and personal development. A special educational need may also impact on this, exacerbating challenges. But we want to argue that a label led approach can be problematic. The fact that a pupil is eligible for the Pupil Premium, the fact that a pupil has SEND tells us very little about that pupil as an individual.
Neither 'PPG' nor 'SEND' are a group or a type. SEND does not equal low attaining. Disadvantage does not equal low attaining. Neither of these groups is homogeneous. Some children eligible for Pupil Premium who have SEND diagnoses are exceptionally high attainers.
By asking the question, ‘How do we best support our PPG SEND pupils?’ we’ve created another reality in which there is a group called ‘PPG SEND’ roaming our corridors, of concerning attainment - a good target for bias and projections of otherness.
Asking ourselves "What should we be doing about PPG SEND?' is fairly fruitless because disadvantage isn't one 'thing' which you apply a solution to.
All pupils have the capacity to grow and develop but this severely hindered if teachers stop thinking in terms of ‘what do they know? What do they need to know next?’
Labels are very poor tools for thinking about learning needs.
Analysing data by group, as my dad would put it, might be useful for monitoring but not prescription.
The fact that some pupils that did not reach age related expectations in reading, writing or maths were Pupil Premium and SEND does not provide useful information for teachers and leaders in planning and implementing strategies to help children to thrive. There may be a correlation between the labels and underachievement, but this should not limit our expectations of what children can achieve. The correlation provides limited information about how we respond to the needs of pupils as individuals.
The key messages here:
The practitioner is the intervention. We need to ensure that staff have the support, expertise, knowledge, and agency to support their learners. Consistent, high quality staff are critically important.
Every pupil is an individual. A focus on labels can disempower teachers and anonymise pupils.
That pupils with additional needs get at least equitable access to well trained, highly qualified staff in comparison to their peers.
Every pupil, irrespective of starting point and background should be given the chance to thrive by;
1) Ensuring that all staff believe that all pupils can make the necessary progress to attain well. That there is a collective responsibility for all pupils and families across the school community.
2) That adults in school are often the variable – children and families need us to be consistent: personnel, routines, interactions and expectations.
3) That children and families are socially included, and feel that they belong. In the classroom, unstructured times, in extracurricular activities, residentials and visits. In sports teams, representing school and student leadership opportunities. That families feel they are listened to and not judged.
4) That there is a meaningful understanding of the impact of low family income on learning and wider school life. Low family income can limit opportunity. It doesn’t mean that pupils lack the potential, talent or ability to thrive.
5) That we carefully assess issues that are impacting on pupils’ learning and opportunity. We can start with issues such as:
Family income
The type of special educational need –for example ADHD / ASC / SCLN / Physical disability / SEMH
Other factors – family education levels, support from external agencies,
6) That we consider how these issues impact on pupils as individuals. Assessment not assumption. These might include:
Food insecurity
Housing/fuel insecurity
Transport difficulties
Social isolation
Fewer opportunities outside of school
Family/carer short termism as a result of a crisis cycle
Lack of social networks limiting access to cultural capital, wider aspects of personal development and opportunities, for example work experience, travel, clubs and activities
Difficulties with the cost of school life (even very low-cost items or activities)
Societal challenges – uncertain income and unemployment risks. Particular judgements, beliefs, and assumptions
Negative feelings of self-worth, anxiety and its impact on future agency and aspiration.
7) We carefully assess how these issues impact on pupils as learners. Poorly identified need leads to poorly identified activity, which leads to weaker results and initiative fatigue. It can lead to a reactive approach to supporting learners. Identifying need might include:
Diagnostic assessment (academic and pastoral)
Observations of learning behaviours the classroom
Specific behaviours associated with a child’s special educational needs
Observations of unstructured times
Observations of talk, listening and non-verbal communication
Book study
Pupil voice
Family voice
Teacher voice
8) Once needs are identified and understood, we carefully consider how we support individuals:
In the classroom, through inclusive teaching strategies, working with high quality practitioners.
Levelling the playing field: front loading the teaching of knowledge, avoid the presumption of language and background knowledge, celebrating the process of learning, as well as the outcome.
Through targeted academic support (that supplements, not supplants.). Be wary of interventions where pupils miss teacher explanation / modelling. And be wary of the disruption of pupils missing ‘something different every week’. This can be well intentioned but problematic.
Consider the trade-offs (academic and social) if pupils are to be removed from class. Careful provision mapping is needed to avoid over intervention. The quality of staff leading any interventions should be excellent.
Any out of school learning is a helpful benefit but should not be essential to progress and attainment.
Strategies should be rooted in early intervention, improving pupils as learners through:
Improving self-regulation skills
Improving communication and language
Building specific, meaningful vocabulary (not reliant on vocabulary lists from the internet)
Improving reading comprehension
Ensuring pupils receive meaningful feedback that they can act on
Meaningful checking for understanding and responsive teaching
Exceptionally high-quality pastoral care (including supporting good attendance). Many pupils face multiple challenges before they even arrive at school
Excellent personal development curriculum that pupils have meaningful interactions with their peers and build strong friendships
Ensuring that pupils are able to participate in extracurricular opportunities, enrichment, residentials and wider opportunities to build social stories – the joyful, emotional memories of school life that everyone should experience
9) That we are careful about implementation, avoiding trying to do too many things at once.
10) Dispassionate impact evaluation, focused on impact on pupils as learners. A robust process and impact evaluation framework should be adopted at the start of support – so teachers and leaders can accurately assess its effectiveness. Changes and adaptations can then be made to practise and to the strategy where necessary.
Are there links between poverty and SEND?
School leaders are likely interested in the nature of links between poverty and SEND, to better understand the families under their care. Families who are under multiple stressors, including supporting a child with SEND, are more vulnerable to being pushed into poverty. Some children growing up under the stresses of financial hardship are more vulnerable to developing SEND.
“Children with SEND are more likely to become poor, while children living in poverty are more likely to develop SEND. This group of children face greater barriers than their peers in experiencing a happy and fulfilling education and greater barriers in achieving the qualifications that might create opportunities later in life.”
So, a sensitivity to individual circumstances and difficulties is key to building productive relationships between home and school.
High expectations and unconscious bias - the soft bigotry of low expectations
If there are two things which the 'group' of PPG/SEND may be more vulnerable to is low expectations, and holding less privilege.
If we think through an ‘intersectional’ lens, and consider a wheel of privilege, we can think about the lived experience of someone who experiences disadvantage and has a SEND diagnosis.
Many thanks to Sylvia Duckworth for this thinking tool.
Families on lower incomes or living in poverty may struggle with time and resources to navigate the SEND system in comparison to more affluent families. There can be the presumption that families on low incomes are somehow not interested - practitioners have to engage with rooting out these unconscious biases in themselves.
For example, one parent who failed to make a longer SEND parent consultation, when I asked her about it, said to me, 'Oh I thought there would be other families who needed it more than us so I thought I'd give them the space.'. It was only then that I had realised my presumption that she wasn't deeply interested and I felt suitably ashamed.
My experience working within this field is that the more you dig into it, the more the unconscious bias around class, income, and accent jumps into sharp relief.
Look at the lived experience of pupils in classrooms
Practitioners should be aware of systemic prejudice and play their part to disrupt it. However, there is so much mileage in examining the educational experience of pupils within our classrooms.
You could start with this checklist of basics - they may seem too basic to bother with. But in my experience, these fixable issues can hamper the learning of pupils minute by minute, every day.
Watch pupils of concern in lessons and consider the learning from their point of view.
Can they see the board?
Can they hear the teacher and other pupils?
Do they know what the lesson is about?
Are they on the right page in the book?
Do they need glasses?
Are they speaking?
Are they being heard?
In my experience, there are often issues in these areas. The good news is, they are fixable! A lot in education is really complex, but these are not.
You could then look at some other routine aspects of classroom learning:
Did the teacher ensure the paired talk was accessible, successful, and accountable?
Has their teacher checked their understanding?
What is the quality of their interaction with staff – focused around learning and based in an interested, kindly relationship? Or judgments to do with their behaviour and personality?
Conclusions
The challenges pupils face may be multiple and complex. External support from outside agencies may be needed (and not always readily available). Multiple challenges mean multiple complexities. Where possible, it’s vital to avoid an overly complicated response.
Pupils who experience multiple and complex challenges with their learning and personal development may need ambitious, personalised, individual approaches to help them in the short and medium term – to help them to thrive in the long term.
The ambition for every pupil, irrespective of challenges they face, should be a life rooted in opportunity.