9th July 2013 9:00
By Blue Tutors
School inspectors Ofsted have announced that primary and secondary schools may be stripped of their ‘outstanding’ status if the schools’ students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds fail to make good progress. Ofsted will now put increased scrutiny on schools, examining the use of the pupil premium payments which are reserved for the poorest students. In order to maintain top rankings, schools will have to show that they are closing the gap between disadvantaged students and their peers. Schools that have a wide gap between the two, or where students from poorer backgrounds are failing to make progress, will now not be able to achieve the ‘outstanding’ status, even where their exam results are generally excellent.
Under the proposals, Ofsted will examine the progress of students who receive extra funds from the pupil premium, which is generally spent on students who receive free school meals. The amount currently received by schools for each student is £600, with plans to increase this to £900 from next academic year. Schools will now have to undergo a pupil premium review, where they will be subject to investigation by headteachers from outstanding schools. The investigations will make recommendations as to how the pupil premium funds might be used to more effectively help students from the poorest backgrounds.
The proposals have been developed after the Department for Education announced that 38% of students receiving the pupil premium achieve A*-C grades in core subjects English and Maths. This compares poorly with the 66% of the students from more affluent backgrounds who achieve A*-C, leaving a gap in achievement of around 27%. However, new research carried out by Manchester and Newcastle universities into uses of the pupil premium suggests that schools are making good use of the subsidy, spending the funds on extra staff in the majority of cases. The research found that whilst the department for education is suggesting that some schools are not putting the money to good use, the reality is that in schools where the budget has been significantly cut by the government, schools are having to use the premium to make up the shortfall of resources for disadvantaged students that used to be covered by routine expenditure.