Agenda item

The draft scoping document for 'A Review into Pupil Premium in Portsmouth City Schools' is attached for discussion.

Kelly Nash, Corporate Performance Manager and Richard Webb, Finance Manager will be attending to provide the panel with an overview to pupil premium.  

Thepanel had received the draft scoping document and briefing paper on pupil premium.

Richard Webb and Kelly Nash introduced their paper.  Richard Webb advised that Pupil Premium funding for maintained schools is allocated via the Council using data provided by the Department for Education. Pupil Premium for Academies is allocated via the Education Funding Agency, except that relating to Looked After Children. Schools and Academies are accountable for how they spend this funding.  For Looked After Children (LAC) the virtual school Head, Helen Thompson, determines through personal education plans (PEP) the value of funding that should be allocated to schools.

In response to a question regarding whether free school meals is still used as an indicator for pupil premium, Richard Webb advised that it was.  He advised the panel of a paper that went to the last Schools Forum meeting on universal infant free school meals implementation.   This advised that the introduction of UIFSM presents a risk to schools in terms of a reduction in the level of pupil premium a school might receive as parents / guardians of children in Year R, 1 and 2 will no longer have any incentive to register for free school meals. To combat this risk the Council issued a letter to all primary and infant schools to help assess the likely uptake of free school meals, but most importantly allow the Council to check for FSM eligibility and therefore claim for pupil premium funding.

In response to a question, Kelly Nash explained that Ofsted have a national interest in the effect pupil premium is having.  Ofsted review how a local authority is influencing the spend of pupil premium money.  The Council's education officers look at data gaps and raise concern if they need to.  They are able to advise schools on areas to consider spending their pupil premium funding but cannot direct them. 

Richard Webb informed the panel that in June this year he led a training session for schools with Tony Quinn, the former senior governor support officer.  The training session was focused around 'school funding and assessing the impact' and included a session on the use of Pupil Premium and the governors role in ensuring it is being used effectively.  This had been well attended with 12-15 governors. Financial Services have developed a training & development programme for schools. Within this programme is an all-day session related to school funding and Pupil Premium which will be taking place on 2^nd October. Kelly Nash added that an engaged governing body was very important.

The recent Ofsted report identified that numbers of pupils eligible for free school meals who achieved five good GCSE passes was below the national average.  In response to a question Mr Webb said that a more cohesive strategy in respect supporting schools to use Pupil Premium more effectively would be helpful.  Finance officers had identified a need to for training to support schools with evaluating the effect of the use of their pupil premium funding, particularly with the increasing level of funding that schools are now receiving. 

In response to a question, Mr Webb stated that the training programme is available to both maintained schools and Academies. The panel asked how many academy schools had signed up to the SLA. The officers present did not have this information but would be happy to provide this to the panel. .  .   All schools are required to publish details of their pupil premium spending on their website.  Ms Nash added that academies were part of clusters and it would be a good opportunity to obtain this information through cluster working. There is also a draft protocol for working with academies which the panel may find of use and this would be circulated to the panel.  Mr Webb added that there are academy school representatives on the Schools Forum which gives the opportunity to engage with them.  In response to a question, officers advised that by the end of the financial year it is likely that more than half of the secondary schools in the city would be Academies.

The panel noted that 23 of the top 25 local authority areas attaining the benchmark are London boroughs and Ms Nash advised this was largely due to the London Challenge work.  Councillor Godier felt it might be useful to see whether there were any academy schools in these authorities and to investigate who the academies are and how they are working with other schools. 

The panel felt there was an issue with how to engage with academies.  Officers advised that Julien Kramer was advocating looking further afield to find examples of LA's with good practice.

Future witnesses

·         It was suggested that a representative from ARK be invited to a future meeting for the panel to gain an understanding on how academies are using pupil premium funding. 

·         A selection of head teachers, possibly those who attended the pupil premium conference earlier in the year

·         Fiona Calderbank, Head teacher of Miltoncross who is the lead secondary head for pupil premium.

·         a selection of governors who attended the pupil premium finance training session in June.

Officers also advised that there a citywide pupil premium conference is being organised for November with the national lead for pupil premium, Sir John Dunford attending to speak.  When further details are available these will be forwarded to the panel as some members may wish to attend this conference. 

Scoping Document

The members examined the draft scoping document.

RESOLVED that the draft scoping document be approved, subject to

amendment during the course of the review.