NAHT welcomes
the opportunity to submit evidence to the Children, Young People
and Education committee.
NAHT
represents more than 29,000 school leaders in early years, primary,
secondary and special schools, making us the largest association
for school leaders in the UK.
We represent,
advise and train school leaders in Wales, England and Northern
Ireland. We use our voice at the highest levels of government to
influence policy for the benefit of leaders and learners
everywhere.
Our new
section, NAHT Edge, supports, develops and represents middle
leaders in schools.
The
invitation to submit evidence to the National Assembly for
WalesÕ Children, Young People and Education Committee
concerning the inquiry on Targeted Funding to Improve
Educational Outcomes is welcome.
NAHT Cymru
will focus specifically on the evidence concerning:
- SchoolsÕ use of the
PDG and the extent to which this benefits the pupils it is designed
to be targeted at;
- The relationship between
PDG-funded support for pupils eligible for free school meals (eFSM)
and expenditure on activities designed to improve attainment of all
pupils;
- The impact of the Schools
Challenge Cymru programme and the consequences of its closure on
the participating ÔPathways to SuccessÕ
schools;
- How the lessons and legacy
of Schools Challenge Cymru can be used to complement subsequent
policies and initiatives aimed at improving educational
outcomes;
- Targeted funding / support
for more able and talented pupils;
- The value for money of
both the PDG and Schools Challenge Cymru
programmes.
- NAHT membership range
Ð Headteachers, Deputy Headteachers, Assistant Headteachers and
Middle Leaders - puts us in an excellent position to provide
evidence to this inquiry.
Introduction
- At the outset, NAHT
Cymru note that responses from school leaders continue to indicate
perceived shortcomings in using an exclusive eFSM metric to
identify the most vulnerable pupils. Many school leaders question
whether eFSM is the most effective measure in order to effectively
indicate those ÔdisadvantagedÕ pupils who would
benefit most from additional resource such as PDG.
- Frequently we receive
comments from school leaders that indicate how poverty and other
vulnerabilities can adversely affect the achievement of groups of
pupils who never directly access the full additional
resources.
These
circumstances might include:
- those pupils who
experience the impact of poverty but have never been eligible for
free school meals, such as those from single parent families where
the parent may choose to undertake more than one job taking their
income just beyond the threshold of eligibility;
- those pupils that are
occasionally eligible for FSM at varying times of the year due to
unreliable / seasonal parental employment (but not eligible at the
point of the PLASC census returns so are not included in
allocations of PDG resource);
- those who are eligible
but, for a variety of reasons including their familyÕs
perception of an associated stigma, never apply for eFSM
status;
- those looked-after
children who are unofficially ÔfosteredÕ by other
family members and may slip through the Ôlooked-afterÕ
child indicator.
- The above is clearly not
an exhaustive list but illustrates how certain circumstances may
result in situations whereby a critical proportion of children and
young people adversely affected by poverty / disadvantage never
directly benefit from the available resources or cause a dilution
of the overall resource within a school as it is spread more widely
byt the school than the original noted pupil numbers.
- It is also worth noting
that the relationship of eFSM / poverty / looked-after status and
educational underachievement is not absolute. Numbers of pupils
from categories that would qualify for additional support resources
achieve well and their families continue to provide outstanding
support to their children in partnership with their schools,
despite the challenging economic circumstances the family may face.
This is not to say that PDG, for example, should not be utilised in
such circumstances, but that the type of additional support must be
differentiated by pupil need.
- Some schools, for
understandable reasons, focus the use of PDG on those eFSM pupils
who are underachieving, however, in some schools the resource is
utilised for the benefit of all eligible pupils irrespective of the
prior achievement levels.
- However, establishing
effective identification criteria is a complex and challenging
issue for all governments and is one that NAHT looked at in some
detail in recent years. We explored alternative measures that could
be used to better identify those pupils that could be considered
adversely affected by poverty and disadvantage. The conclusion was
that FSM was the best (or Ôleast worseÕ) of the
available options but that possibly including further data, such as
the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation, as well as utilising the
ÔEver 6Õ FSM indicator for those pupils who have ever
been eligible, might enable a greater proportion of those pupils
who need support to receive it.
- NAHT also believe that if
eFSM is to be truly effective and the main driver for
identification of those requiring support, auto-registration for
eFSM is essential as it ensures that as many pupils who are
eligible benefit from the support.
SchoolsÕ
use of the PDG and the extent to which this benefits the pupils it
is designed to be targeted at;
- Schools use PDG in a
variety of ways and frequently seek to be flexible in the use of
the resource in order to meet the varying needs of eligible pupils.
Schools may implement specific interventions, such as catch-up
literacy programmes, to support particular groups of pupils and
such circumstances frequently feature a combination of PDG, other
relevant grants and core school budgets.
- Undoubtedly, there is an
effect caused by accountability as to the type of support put in
place by schools. Despite recognising the inextricable link between
pupil mental health and wellbeing and their ability to learn and
make effective progress, schools Ð particularly those under
pressure from literacy and numeracy targets Ð may choose
to focus on specific literacy and numeracy interventions funded by
PDG, rather than on initiatives to support pupil wellbeing as the
benefits to those pupils in their academic progress may not come to
fruition swiftly enough for the school to demonstrate impact to
external organisations such as regional consortia or
Estyn.
- The recently published
ÔEvaluation of the Pupil Deprivation Grant - Final report -
December 2017Õ undertaken by Ipsos MORI, WISERD and the
Administrative Data Research Centre Ð Wales on behalf of Welsh
Government, indicated the pooling of resource as a fairly common
feature - Ôas a part of the full suite of funding provided to
schools the impact of the PDG is reliant on the existence of other
funding streams with similar or complementary
aimsÉÉevidence shows that schools top up the funding
used to run PDG activities from their own budgets and/or other
funding streams by substantial amountsÕ.
- It is clear, therefore,
that impacts upon other budgets, such as austerity effects on
school budgets, is likely to indirectly affect the impact of PDG
initiatives.
- Much of the impact of
disadvantage upon children and young people lies outside the direct
influence of schools, it is also clear that on arrival at school,
pupils from economically challenged circumstances can already be at
a significant disadvantage compared to their peers. The Sutton
Trust highlighted this school start gap in a report in 2016 which
showed that in terms of reading readiness, disadvantaged pupils are
on average 8 months behind their peers on arrival at
school.
- NAHT strongly believe that
investing in the early years, as well as joint agency approaches in
pre-school years, is vital if Wales is to close the gap for
disadvantaged children and young people.
- Schools can evidence that
funded interventions, such as employing family liaison officers,
can have a huge impact. In such cases, schools are able to support
hard to reach families, are better placed to provide good
communication, run courses to support pupils and families and
improve the school to home link as early as possible. Some of these
same schools, however, are reporting that the pressures resulting
from more challenging school budget demands may require them to
reallocate this vital support in the very near future.
The
relationship between PDG-funded support for pupils eligible for
free school meals (eFSM) and expenditure on activities designed to
improve attainment of all pupils;
- The use of PDG funding is
rarely in isolation and frequently involves the pooling of
different resources, as cited in the ÔEvaluation of the Pupil
Deprivation Grant - Final report - December 2017Õ. Most
schools seek to undertake a holistic approach to the
self-evaluation / school improvement cycle and, in analysing pupil
data and utilising their knowledge of specific pupil needs, will
seek to co-ordinate the use of all resources, including PDG
resource, on a whole school basis.
- NAHT fear that the
pressures now facing school budgets will have a direct influence
upon the type of activities they are able to add in the future for
the most vulnerable learners through PDG and other
grants.
- School leaders have told
us the following in relation to their budgets and the knock on
effect this has with additional grants such as the PDG:
á
'Across the
authority, the schools managing to draw together a budget anything
like the one they need, tend to be the ones in receipt of
significant pupil deprivation grant. We lost £50,000 to the
UK government's apprenticeship levy; so we lose two staff to pay
for it and the parents will be very unhappy with that
situation.'
á
'Our budget is
£300,000 short this year and we are looking at reducing
interventions and have increased class sizes'
á
'Grants (such
as EIG and PDG) are masking the extent of the funding
shortfallÕ
The impact of
the Schools Challenge Cymru programme and the consequences of its
closure on the participating ÔPathways to SuccessÕ
schools;
- The Schools Challenge
Cymru (SCC) programme appeared to present a varied picture. It
appeared to be highly dependent upon the lead school and their
commitment and ability to link with partnership schools. NAHT are
aware of secondary schools in receipt of the SCC funding where
primaries in the same cluster saw little benefit at all. In one
such case there was no evidence of impact of spending or
partnership working. In fact monies promised through agreed plans
never materialised, staff appointed by the secondary school to
benefit cross phase working did not attend meetings or deliver any
programmes and the Schools Challenge Cymru Challenge Adviser at
that time never made it to the many cluster meetings to which they
were invited. Headteachers from the primary cluster schools never
met the SCC Challenge Adviser.
- However, elsewhere
secondary lead schools took a different approach and made effective
use of SCC money with visible impact. Partnership working was a key
feature and there was a degree of sustainability planned into the
system beyond the initial funding.
- It was somewhat unclear
how robustly and consistently the regional consortia monitored the
use of the SCC funds. It is also worth noting that the positive
outcomes of such a programme are potentially both longer term and
in areas such as pupil confidence, wellbeing and engagement which
are harder to demonstrate in terms of measurable impact over a
short time period.
- Clearly, the closure of
the SCC programme had a variable impact upon the various
ÔPathways to SuccessÕ schools, depending upon the
level of cluster, joined up working that had been established by
the lead schools Ð where it was poor, the impact would have
been minimal, however, where it had been effective, the loss of the
programme would place under threat some positive outcomes for
vulnerable pupils.
How the
lessons and legacy of Schools Challenge Cymru can be used to
complement subsequent policies and initiatives aimed at improving
educational outcomes;
- In his paper,
ÔEducation Community Partnerships: A new way forward for
Education in WalesÕ, Professor David Egan notes a number of
features of successful school community co-ordinated approaches
from across the world that seek to tackle the underachievement of
disadvantaged pupils.
The lessons
from the SCC programme appear to align with this type of thinking -
in practical terms Professor Egan notes the following requirements
in the approach:
á
High quality
pre-school education.
á
Excellent
learning and teaching within schools.
á
Family
engagement opportunities
á
Extensive
out-of-hours learning opportunities
á
A
strong focus on wellbeing.
á
Opportunities
for early intervention when anyone falls behind in their
learning.
á
A
variety of routes to employability.
- If the above were to be
undertaken, with similar cluster focused approaches as the SCC
programme intended, with robust monitoring and an expectation of
joint working between schools and their partners the approach could
prove to be more effective. Leadership across the sectors need to
share the aspirations, secure buy-in to that commitment through
pooling of resources to address the challenges faced by such
vulnerable learners and their families both within and outside the
learning environment (including front loading pre-school and early
years) Ð as a result there should be a greater opportunity of
success for children and young people.
- For Wales to effectively
tackle disadvantage and the impact of poverty on the educational
outcomes of children and young people, high level government policy
across the various sectors needs to align.
- In addition, there must be
an acceptance that educational institutions cannot address the
types of disadvantage affecting children and young people by
themselves, each sector must recognise and work together to
maximise their impact.
- Professor David Egan
explains that, ÔThe increasing knowledge we have about the
importance of families and communities in influencing educational
achievement, joined with a new model of school improvement, can
offer a new innovative direction for Welsh education policy which
could be particularly focused on improving equity within the
systemÉÉThe development of Education Community
Partnerships, influenced by current emerging practice in Wales and
examples drawn from other countries, could provide an
organisational format for this new direction in Welsh education
policy.Õ
- However, this could prove
to be an insurmountable challenge without adequate core funding of
the school system as a whole, otherwise the risks outlined in
paragraphs 13 and 14 would potentially dilute the impact of the
focused resources if they are still covering gaps elsewhere in core
budgets.
Targeted
funding / support for more able and talented pupils;
- In previous evidence
sessions to the Children, Young People and Education committee
concerning areas such as the Additional Learning Needs Bill and the
emotional resilience, mental health and wellbeing of children, as
well as in paragraphs 13 and 14 of this paper, school leaders have
outlined the pressures currently facing them in terms of the use of
such funding and resource.
- The need to target funding
/ support for more able and talented (MAT) pupils is fully accepted
and continues to be a focus for many schools. However, where
prioritising is now an inevitable consequence of the increasingly
limited resources, schools are left with little left in order to
support MAT pupils once they have ensured those learners who are
struggling most are supported. For example, numbers of schools are
losing support staff who in the past would have been providing
additional challenge and support to the most able
pupils.
The value for
money of both the PDG and Schools Challenge Cymru
programmes.
- One of the
major difficulties in assessing the value for money of the PDG and
the SCC programmes is being certain that the additional resource or
programme itself was the sole reason for any positive outcomes,
particularly given the point made earlier in our evidence about
combined funding streams. As the ÔEvaluation of the Pupil
Deprivation Grant - Final report - December 2017Õ states,
ÔÉ. it is worth reiterating that schools top up PDG
funding by a considerable amount. It is therefore difficult to
assess the extent to which the additional funding works with PDG to
support a wider cohort of learners, who, schools consider,
experience broader disadvantage than just being
e-FSM.Õ
- Any additional resource is
welcome and should provide a positive impact for pupils, however,
two factors need to be noted. Firstly, the metrics that are to be
used to gauge success Ð certain pupil data accountability
measures are too narrow, or are over too short a time period to
provide reliable progress measures Ð and secondly, only if the
resource is completely additional and not diluted by inadequate
funding elsewhere.
- One NAHT school leader
member stated, ÔIn truth, PDG does not add extra resources if
it covers core staffing costs and these core staff members deliver
interventions as well as trying to offer in-class support. At KS2
my school has two Teaching Assistants (shared between 6 classes)
and without PDG we may not be able to sustain that. This is not
enough support but we did not want to set a deficit
budget.Õ
- Some school leaders report
that they submit a grant funding impact report with detailed
information on programmes being funded and measurable impact of
those to their Challenge Adviser twice per year. It is unclear
whether this is a consistent approach across all Challenge Advisers
or regional consortia. If this was the case, the level of detailed
evidence of the impact of targeted funding would be
considerable.
Conclusion
- For targeted funding to
improve educational outcomes, NAHT believe a number of factors need
to be considered and acknowledged.
These can most effectively
be expressed as:
á
Education
policies (and schools themselves) not operating in
isolation;
á
Pooling of
cross-sector resourcing to maximise impact;
á
Cross sector
leadership being supported to work collaboratively;
á
Strong focus
on pre-school and early years;
á
Investment in
developing quality of teaching;
á
Support for
wider family needs and community to develop effective home-school
links;
á
Ensuring
additional targeted funding is not consumed or diluted by
insufficiency of funding elsewhere;
á
Accountability
measures that encourage all stakeholders to seek equity and
positive outcomes for all;
á
Providing a
clear purpose for maximising educational outcomes related to
aspirations, employability and future success Ð make sure this
is clear to children and young people and their
families.
Rob Williams
Ð Policy Director NAHT Cymru
References:
á
ÔEDUCATION COMMUNITY
PARTNERSHIPS: A NEW WAY FORWARD FOR EDUCATION IN
WALESÕ
written by Professor David
Egan. June 2016
(The Wales Centre for
Equity in Education is a national policy and applied research
centre dedicated to improving educational equity in Wales. It is a
joint initiative between the University of Wales and the University
of Wales Trinity Saint David.)
á
Evaluation of the Pupil
Deprivation Grant
Final report
- December 2017
Written for Welsh
Government by Julia Pye, Lucy Lindley (Ipsos MORI)
Chris Taylor, Daniel Evans
(WISERD) Katy Huxley (Administrative Data Research Centre Ð
Wales)
á
The Sutton
Trust - ÔInternational inequalitiesÕ - Learning
from international comparisons
Written by Sean Reardon
and Jane Waldfogel
December 2016