Social injustice implications represent only one area of the policy in which the teachers would have benefitted from more information. An obstacle to a more proactive approach to planning for disadvantage was that the teachers did not know enough about the Pupil Premium students’ backgrounds to be able to address associated issues with any degree of confidence. This related to the specifics of the students’ background as well as a lack of knowledge and empathy. However, since the teachers had very little specific background information about their Pupil Premium students, any differences could seem quite abstract. This lack of knowledge possessed by the class teachers and the minimal information provided by their leadership teams appeared
significant. This contrasts with how much data they had on student attainment in addition to how well each of the participants felt they knew their students as learners. However, not knowing why a student might be identified as Pupil Premium could explain some of the feelings of disconnection with the policy expressed by the participants. Without this knowledge or a justification of the policy, it is understandable why, at times, the staff seemed ambivalent
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the same time being held accountable for something over which she had no control, and which was rarely discussed. Greater explanation of what the policy was trying to achieve and why, at both national and local level, could combat this ambivalence.
Schools are not necessarily party to specific background information which explains why a student may be identified as Pupil Premium. They know that the student‘s family income will be small enough to have qualified for free school meals in the last six years or are considered ‘looked after’ such as being in Local Authority care (DfE, 2017). However, they may not know specific details about a student’s background. The school organisation would have some indication based on general knowledge of student background but there would always be an element of speculation as to the individuals’
eligibility. Even if the school were relativity confident as to why a student was identified as Pupil Premium, they may find disseminating this information to classroom teachers difficult due to safeguarding and data protection issues. As a result, not only were the participants in this study unable to see the broader justifications of the policy, they were also uninformed as to the nature of the socio-economic issues which might be preventing their students from succeeding. As a result, they felt that any intervention would require an
element of guesswork based on the limited evidence in their possession. This does beg a question as to how much knowledge a classroom teacher should and/or could have about a student’s background and how far this would influence the planning and delivery of lessons and homework. However, it
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seems that being totally ignorant of the home situation was a significant issue for the participants.
Angela recognised a connection between home life and homework but was wary of making assumptions based on surface impressions. Dawn too felt she could, at best, make assumptions about the effect home life was having on the progress of her students. This supported Eddie’s point that it was impossible to make personalised provision without sufficient knowledge. Brian and Charlotte, as teachers of core subjects, saw their classes more often than the others but still felt that they did not know enough about their students’ backgrounds to make specific interventions based on Pupil
Premium. Greater knowledge would not guarantee improved outcomes and may, indeed, provide greater opportunity for teachers to misrecognise the issues of socio-economic disadvantage or impose dominant class views and thereby exacerbate the problem. Any additional knowledge, therefore, would have to be manageable but also sufficient to avoid counter-productive
demonisation of parental values and practices based on preconceived ideas about deficiencies in working-class homes (Gewirtz et al., 2005; Ingram, 2009; Reay, 2006; Wood & Warin, 2014).
Charlotte dismissed the connection between homework and a student’s home situation as inconsequential, suggesting instead it was related more to
individual characteristics than background. It is interesting that, unlike some of the other participants, she did not see a potential link between poor
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between parental support and student progress but, as it did not appear
uniform even within their own classes, it represented something of a dead-end for the participants within the study. The lack of specific knowledge about home acted to justify a lack of personalised provision as well as keeping their interactions with the students firmly in the sphere of the classroom. The teachers’ understanding of the Pupil Premium students’ needs as learners might be improved if they were more inclined to engage with their out of school circumstances, including greater communication with parents and/or guardians. This was not highlighted as an expectation of the teachers in any of the schools’ policy documents. This is understandable since it may prove impractical to possess detailed knowledge of hundreds of students’
backgrounds. It may also be difficult to get the parents and/or guardians of the most disadvantaged to engage in such interactions. This may be as a result of the working-class habitus and the link between parents’ social status and the difficulties experienced when interacting with teachers (Harris & Goodall, 2008, p. 286). It may also be that schools communicate superior attitudes towards parents thereby creating barriers for collaboration (Crozier, 1997, p. 327). A genuinely welcoming, two-way relationship would be
preferable but this may also prove problematic based on some of the ill- informed views and preconceptions highlighted during this and other studies (Reay, 2006; Wood & Warin, 2014). The Pupil Premium policy documents from some of the participant schools also appear to suggest prejudicial ideas about their disadvantaged families. One identified ‘poor parenting’ among their barriers to learning while another blamed an ‘inward-looking community with low aspirations’. This echoes the findings of Wood and Warin (2014),
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wherein staff interpretations of previous educational policy were influenced by their perceptions about the pupils’ parents. They found that such perceptions linked to social class complement the practices of middle-class parents at the expense of minority-ethnic and working-class people (p. 937). Therefore, greater interaction with home could be considered as a potential strategy, not just to improve outcomes for the Pupil Premium students but also to address preconceptions from within the schools. It still appears that teachers require training focused on avoiding the type of unconscious bias directed at working class students which Rist (1970) observed over forty years ago.
Increased knowledge of the Pupil Premium students’ situations could also act to address another ‘unfairness’ which several of the participants identified within the scheme. Angela and Brian expressed concerns about the eligibility criteria being used and Charlotte suggested that some students had been misidentified. “I don't think all Pupil Premium are disadvantaged money wise, I think it's wrong to think that, because I know for a fact it's not true. I think there's lots of kids who aren't Pupil Premium who have got equal
disadvantages with money”.
They all questioned the process since some students who they felt were disadvantaged were not identified on the Pupil Premium list, whereas some of those who were, did not seem to merit inclusion. There were clearly
discrepancies between what the government defined as disadvantaged in the policy with what the teachers experienced in the classroom. However,
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unclear why the teachers felt that they had sufficient knowledge to make these judgements whereas in other areas, they felt uninformed. It seemed based simply on their understanding of the students’ economic situation influenced by the same superficial knowledge which was used to justify not adopting a more personalised approach. Moreover, there were suggestions that, within the observed classes, there were non-Pupil Premium students who were more deserving of help than their Pupil Premium peers since they were making more effort and had more positive attitudes. This, of course, ignores the wider reasons behind these differences which could well find their origins in issues based around social disadvantage. Clearly, a more
intersectional approach would be appropriate, based on understandings of how social disadvantages associated with various dimensions of difference may be compounded by the disadvantages associated with another (Pollard, 2008, p. 411). Crenshaw (2017) too highlights how a student’s different overlapping social identities, including class and ethnic background can lead to a compounding of discrimination in education. If the teachers knew more, they might be more sensitive but some suggested that to do so, may not be a wholly acceptable position. Dawn, Charlotte and Eddie all intimated that to make allowances for background issues would not only be patronising but may also lead to greater gaps in attainment due to a lesser degree of
challenge. This seemed plausible but would be difficult to substantiate. It is true that some methods used to engage working-class students have been found to perpetuate patronising assumptions and low expectations which impede rather than address social justice (Francis et al., 2017). Moreover, if the teachers made allowances which led to lower expectations based on their
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circumstances, we would be seeing the type of phenomena described by Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) among others (Gershenson et al., 2016; Rist, 1970). However, if allowances were characterised by personalised provision based on individual needs, challenge could remain high and care could be taken to avoid patronising the students. This ambiguity underlines a need for greater depth of knowledge as well as more theoretical understanding. Teachers need to know about individual students in their classes and how their specific situation impacts upon learning. Without such knowledge, they are forced to make decisions based on the Pupil Premium cohort as a whole.