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Spending�your�premium

So, what are the overarching strategies that should guide settings in decisions about how to spend this money wisely? John Dunford is the National Pupil Premium Champion – this is an independent role that requires him to work with schools and local authorities in regard the effective use of pupil premium funding, researching and highlighting examples of best practice around the country. He recommends a five-step strategy to ensure effective use of the funding. These steps are:• Identify the barriers to learning of the children for

whom EYPP is being received.• Decide on desired outcomes – i.e. what the setting

wants to achieve with the money. • Attach success criteria to those outcomes.• Put in place the strategies and interventions that

will help to achieve that success.• Continually evaluate the success of each strategy

and intervention and drop those that are not yielding results.

In deciding how to invest the money, settings need to make use of available evidence of what works best. The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) is a charity dedicated to breaking the link between family income and educational achievement through evidence-based research. Its website – www.educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk – contains a Teaching and Learning Toolkit that provides school practitioners with information about specific strategies and interventions that make the most difference to children’s outcomes.

Following a very good response to a call for evidence from 4Children, this toolkit now includes case studies and information relevant to work in the early years sector and will be added to over the coming months and years as more projects and trials are evaluated. Practitioners should also seek out and learn from excellent practice in other settings, establishing local partnerships and networks so that they can share knowledge about successful strategies and interventions.

These partnerships could also prove valuable if settings decide to pool their money to buy in services and programmes – the amount of EYPP per child is very small and this may be a more viable and effective means of investing the funding.

The final principle that should guide settings in their decision making is that of working in partnership with the people that know their children and local

With the introduction of the Early Years Pupil Premium, settings are now able to claim extra funding for eligible children, but what is the best way to invest this money? Deborah Fielden explores the options.

ON APrIL 1st, the Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) was introduced nationwide, following trials in six early implementer local authorities,

which had started in January. It is a source of additional funding for early years settings to support disadvantaged three and four-year-old children and may be claimed by any registered early years provider that takes children for the funded early education entitlement. In general, children are eligible if they receive this entitlement and either their parents are in receipt of one or more of the benefits used to assess eligibility for free school meals, they are or have been in care, or their parents are in the armed forces.

Pupil Premium was introduced in schools in April 2011 to raise the achievement of disadvantaged pupils from reception to Year 11 and to narrow the gap between the attainment of these children and that of their peers. rigorous evaluation of how schools have spent this money, and the impact that this has had on the attainment of children in receipt of the premium, has demonstrated that the extra funding has had a positive effect.

There is a growing recognition of the crucial importance and impact of children’s experiences and development during the early years on their future success as learners. The findings of several research projects highlight the fact that the educational attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers has already appeared by the time that they start school.

The aim of expanding the initiative into the early years is to support providers in tackling disadvantage and barriers to learning more effectively during this critical stage in children’s lives and, therefore, to address the emerging gap in attainment at a time when it will have most impact.

How�the�money�be�invested?The impact of EYPP funding will depend on how wisely it is spent. The main accountability mechanism will be through Ofsted inspection; the effective use and impact of EYPP will be assessed and judged under the leadership and management section of the framework. Inspectors will look at how providers have considered how best to invest the funding, how they expect to determine if the money has improved a child’s outcomes and any evidence available on the impact already achieved.

Deborah�Fieldenis an early years teacher

and consultant, Staffordshire

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You can use the funding for long-term whole-school gains or to address speci c needs

photo by Lucie Carlier

areas of learning – Personal, social and emotional development; Communication and language; and Physical development – eff ectively. A wealth of research highlights the long-lasting negative eff ects of early developmental delay in these three areas on children’s future attainment and success as learners.

In particular, children’s speech and language development has been identifi ed as an area in which delay is particularly evident in disadvantaged children and contributes to their underachievement at later stages of their education. For this reason, specifi c interventions that focus on identifying and addressing delays in these three areas will be a good use of the funding.

Use of the funding to screen children, and then to provide experiences and activities, and to put specifi c interventions and strategies in place to support any children with a delay will have a positive impact on their progress. Th is could involve buying in the services of outside professionals – for example, speech and language therapists or physiotherapists,

community best. Th is will ensure that both general and individual barriers are pinpointed accurately and strategies that are most likely to succeed are identifi ed. Th ese will be any individuals involved with children and families and could include parents and carers, social workers, health professionals, parent support workers and religious leaders.

With the overall proviso that the funding must be used to promote better outcomes for the children for whom it is claimed, the Department for Education (2014) has stated that providers should have freedom to decide how best to invest the money in their setting because they have the expert knowledge of the factors contributing to underachievement of their children.

John Dunford recommends using the money to implement a balance of long and short-term strategies. Th ese will include some that improve the overall quality of teaching and learning for all children at the setting and some that address the individual needs of specifi c individual children.

Long-term�strategiesTo improve the overall quality of teaching and learningTh e Eff ective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) research project (2004) found that disadvantaged children, in particular, benefi t from good quality pre-school experiences and that this quality has a long lasting impact on their future attainment.

Key areas included the quality of adult/child verbal interactions, including the extent to which practitioners promoted sustained shared thinking, and practitioners’ professional knowledge and understanding of child development, how young children learn and the curriculum. It follows that use of the funding to provide staff training in all or any of these areas will raise the quality of the setting and is, therefore, likely to have positive, long-lasting eff ects on the overall quality of support given to children’s learning and development.

Th e project also identifi ed the extent to which practitioners encouraged parents and carers to become involved in their children’s learning as an important factor in determining the quality of a setting, highlighting the powerful infl uence of the home learning environment on child development.

A respectful and supportive partnership with parents and carers, involving a real commitment to understanding and meeting the needs and circumstances of individual families, is central to ensuring that each child can achieve their full potential. Th e money might be used to nurture and develop this underlying ethos, funding practitioners and resources to support parents and carers in their role as the most important educators of their children.

Short-term�strategiesTo address the individual needs of specifi c children Th e EYFS emphasises the fundamental importance of promoting development within the three prime

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Key�pointsl On April 1st, the Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) was introduced nationwide,

following trials in six early implementer local authorities, which had started in January

l It is a source of additional funding for early years settings to support disadvantaged three and four-year-old children and may be claimed by any registered early years provider that takes children for the funded early education entitlement

l Pupil Premium was introduced in schools in April 2011 and the aim of expanding the initiative into the early years sector is to support providers in tackling disadvantage and barriers to learning more effectively during this critical stage in children’s lives and, therefore, to address the emerging gap in attainment at a time when it will have most impact

to work with the children and staff, or employing an extra member of staff to work with individuals or small groups of children on a regular basis.

The money might also be used to fund particular initiatives, trips and activities and to purchase equipment and resources that are proven to promote development within these areas effectively.

Case�studiesSally Lynch is the foundation stage manager at a primary academy in Stoke-on-Trent. As part of the senior leadership team, she has used her experience of how pupil premium has been invested higher up the school when making decisions about how to invest EYPP.

Her data identified that the children’s development within all three Prime areas was a big issue and they have invested money to address this. A member of staff has attended Five to Thrive training to enable them to develop work with parents on the importance of attachment, and another member of staff leads circle times using purchased resources proven to develop children’s self-esteem.

Staff members have completed Write Dance training and an outside organisation provides a weekly physical activity programme so that children’s gross and physical motor skills are targeted.

The services of a speech and language therapist are used to screen the children and staff members have been trained to deliver the Nuffield Early Language Intervention and other language programmes for children identified with developmental delay. Sally is clear that improving the knowledge and skills of existing staff has the biggest long-term impact on

improving children’s achievement. She also stresses the importance of close and regular data scrutiny to identify particular issues and barriers accurately and to enable settings to be fluid and responsive to any changes in need quickly.

Esther O’Connor is the early years phase leader at a primary school in Northampton. Data analysis of children in receipt of EYPP funding showed that language was the area in which their attainment was lowest and they have, therefore, prioritised this area when investing the money. They have employed a member of staff to enrich the language skills of all children within the free flow learning of the setting and have also trained staff to deliver specific language interventions for individual children. In addition, they have funded extra hours for individual children with particularly poor social and language skills.

Looking forward, they have plans to use the money to ensure that the transition of EYPP children into school is supported effectively with the provision of summer projects and clubs, and work with parents and carers. The school has an EYPP working group, which includes family support workers, to ensure the parental engagement of families and, therefore, to maximise impact.

ConclusionThe introduction of the EYPP provides early years settings with additional funding to help them meet the individual needs of disadvantaged children effectively, ensuring that they can meet their full potential. In order to ensure maximum impact, the setting needs to implement a clear underlying strategy for spending the money. This should include:• The regular collection and scrutiny of data on the

children’s development.• Clear action plans.• The use of available evidence on best practice and

effective strategies and interventions. • Partnership working. Settings should consider using a balance of long and short-term strategies, both improving the overall quality of teaching and learning for all children and addressing the individual, specific needs of children in receipt of the funding. eye

Useful�resources• Write Dance – http://writedancetraining.com/• Nuffield Early Language Intervention– www.ican.

org.uk/nuffield

ReferencesDepartment for Education (2014) Consultation on early years pupil

premium and funding for 2-year-olds: Government consultation response (PDF). Department for Education: London. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/early-years-pupil-premium-and-funding-for-2-year-olds

SureStart (2004) The Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) Project: findings from Pre-school to end of Key Stage 1 (PDF) Available at: http://www.ioe.ac.uk/rB_Findings_from_early_primary%281%29.pdf

’‘Inspectors will look at how providers have invested the funding to improve a child’s

outcomes and any evidence available on the impact already achieved