By: Lisa Wise
Wilbury Primary School is a large primary school in Edmonton,
North London, in an area of significant deprivation. Children can
start from two years of age. As the end of the school year
approaches, we know many schools will be evaluating their current
pupil premium strategy and starting to plan their pupil premium
spend for the upcoming academic year. We asked the Headteacher of
Wilbury, Lisa Wise, to tell us about her school's approach to
supporting pupils through
their pupil premium strategy.
We are a happy and vibrant school, where staff and children
thrive and achieve. For us, early intervention is key. We focus
on language development, in all its forms, the core subjects and
using evidence (internal and external) to constantly refine and
improve the quality of our teaching across the curriculum.
Evaluating and improving teaching practice
Our leadership team play a significant role in evaluating
disadvantaged pupils' progress through ongoing, and crucially,
supportive monitoring and quality assurance.
We evaluate last year's activity and impact to update our pupil
premium strategy each year. We triangulate evidence from
assessments and pupil data, as well as reports and studies on
effective use of pupil premium and the impact of educational
disadvantage.
A key focus of our pupil premium spending is supporting
high-quality teaching. Our leadership team devote time to our
staff for collaborative team planning and teaching, and spend
time in classrooms to provide on-the-spot coaching, training, and
immediate feedback to develop practice. This all happens
within an open and enthusiastic culture, where staff at all
levels support and challenge each other.
There is a collective understanding of the impact of disadvantage
on pupils' learning, and staff at every level speak with one
voice about our ambition for all our
pupils.
Effective implementation
At Wilbury, the practitioner is the
intervention – we strongly reject labels for children. We know
our children's success and progress is dependent on the
quality of staff at all levels across the school and every moment
matters. The professional development of staff is therefore at
the heart of our pupil premium strategy.
Effective implementation is key, and we strongly believe ‘the way
you do what you do' is the most important thing.
Top tips for tackling educational disadvantage
My advice to school leaders who are looking back at their current
pupil premium strategy, and planning for the next academic year,
is as follows:
- Create a happy, open, enthusiastic, and positive culture,
with trusting relationships, high expectations, urgency, and
leadership at all levels across the school.
- Build high-quality leadership capacity
- Be clear about your key whole-school priorities – simple,
effective, and fewer things are better
- Be clear about why these are your priorities and
communicate this to staff using evidence and data
- The core subjects and language development are most
important.
- Create collective responsibility for raising standards across
the school. Make everyone in school feel part of this, ensuring
they feel empowered to make a positive contribution through an
open and enthusiastic culture; collaborative progress meetings;
Planning, Preparation and Assessment sessions; and in strong
well-led teams.
- Celebrate success all the time and value the contribution of
staff at all levels
- Do not focus on labels or groups for children - focus on
improving the quality of your teachers and support staff daily
- Always make decisions based on clear evidence and
never assume!
