Cost effective ways to use your pupil premium

From the EEF Toolkit, to former pupil premium award winners, we summarise the best of the research into the pupil premium strategies for primary schools that work

CREDIT: This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on Third Space Learning

For many primary schools, because of the area they serve, pupil premium funding forms a sizeable chunk of the overall school budget. Schools are held accountable for how they spend their pupil premium so need to make sure that any pupil premium strategies, or interventions, they introduce are as effective as possible. The sweet spot is, of course, free or very low cost pupil premium interventions that are also highly effective.

15-point pupil premium success plan

Sir John Dunford, the former national pupil premium champion, spent two years examining what works best; he spoke to schools, addressed conferences and acted as a channel of communication between the Department for Education and schools. He noted that the most successful schools use a range of strategies that are targeted to meet the needs of individual pupils, rather than sticking with one or two. The most successful schools:

1. Collected and analysed data on groups and individual pupils, and monitored this over time.
2. Focused on teaching quality.
3. Identified the main barriers to learning for disadvantaged children.
4. Put interventions in place when progress has slowed.
5. Engaged with parents and carers in the education of their child.
6. Referred to existing evidence about the effectiveness of different strategies.
7. Trained all classroom staff in the strategies being used in school.
8. Secured staff commitment to the importance of the pupil premium agenda.
9. Trained governors on pupil premium.

In deciding which policies to use, heads and teachers need to:
10. Decide what the school wants to achieve with pupil premium funding.
11. Analyse the barriers to learning before deciding what strategies to use.
12. Decide on desired outcomes, and identify success criteria for each.
13. Monitor and evaluate the impact of any current strategies on pupils, and change them if they’re not working.
14. Decide on an optimum range of approaches to use.
15. Keep up-to-date with research.

“In future, it will be up to regional school commissioners, local authorities, multi-academy trusts and school alliances to keep the pupil premium cause at the top of their list of priorities,” Sir John said. “The social, moral and educational case for giving additional support to children born less fortunate than others remains as strong as ever. Every school needs a pupil premium champion.”

Effective pupil premium strategies for primary schools

1) Feedback

Cost: Low
Progress: +8 months

2) Metacognition and self-regulation

Cost: Low
Progress: +8 months

3) Reading comprehension strategies

Cost: Low
Progress: +5 months

4) Mastery learning

Cost: Low
Progress: +5 months

5) Collaborative learning

Cost: Low
Progress: +5 months

6) Early years interventions

Cost: Very high
Progress: +5 months

7) One-to-one tuition

Cost: High
Progress: +5 months

8) Oral language interventions

Cost: Low
Progress: +5 months

9) Peer tutoring

Cost: Low
Progress: +5 months

10) Phonics

Cost: Very low
Progress: +4 months

11) Outdoor Adventure Learning

Cost: Moderate
Progress: +4 months

12) Small group tuition

Cost: Moderate
Progress: +4 months

13) Digital technology

Cost: Moderate
Progress: +4 months

14) Social and emotional learning (SEL)

Cost: Moderate
Progress: +4 months

15) Behaviour interventions

Cost: Moderate
Progress: +3 months

16) Parental engagement

Cost: Moderate
Progress: +3 months

17) Within-class attainment group

Cost: Very low
Progress: +3 months

18) Individualised instruction

Cost: Very low
Progress: +3 months

19) Reducing class size

Cost: High
Progress: +3 months

20) Summer Schools

Cost: Moderate
Progress: +2-4 months