In April the government announced it was introducing template forms for schools to explain how they were using their pupil premium (PP) money.

What’s more, the Department for Education said these new forms must be used to “demonstrate how their spending decisions are informed by research evidence” and “make reference to a range of sources” in doing so.

And none of this was a polite suggestion - filling them out is now a condition of receiving funding and they must be published on the school website by 31 December.

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At the time, this development was seen by some as a useful way of formalising a process that was too vague by giving schools clarity on how to demonstrate they were spending their PP money well while others saw it as more top-down control from the DfE that just created more paperwork.

Either way, the plan went ahead with the forms for schools to use and they were published on 6 September - and many schools no doubt set to work dutifully filling in the new templates.

Then on 1 November - almost two months later - the DfE published three examples of how the forms should be filled out for primary, secondary and special schools to provide schools with insights on what should be included.

One of those involved in this work was Marc Rowland, pupil premium and vulnerable learning advisor for the Unity Schools Partnership, who worked with the DfE in an advisory capacity to create the template examples.

And when he tweeted about their availability the response on Twitter shows they are clearly something the sector has been waiting for with interest.

The new worked examples for Pupil Premium strategy templates are now published. They can be found here: https://t.co/Vlg8nSti4T. Lots of colleagues working in schl leadership, schl improvement & key organisations such @EducEndowFoundn have worked hard on them. I hope they help.

- Marc Rowland (@marcrowland73) November 2, 2021

So why are these template examples so important - and how should schools use them best?

For Rowland, the overriding aim of the examples is to show schools how they can be used to really think about how they spend their PP money so that it has the biggest impact.

“When thinking about the templates we wanted to make sure that it was asking purposeful questions to help schools make good decisions about how to use funding,” he told Tes.

“We want to move away from just being driven by the label of pupil premium and instead about what is best for the pupil.”

This is why, he says, the first stage on the form - the statement of intent - is so important, as it should bring clarity to everyone in the school, and outside, about what the school is trying to achieve for its disadvantaged pupils.

“The statement of intent is about showing what is the broader ambition in our school, what our principles [are], our values, and then sharing with external and internal stakeholders to create collective responsibility in schools about addressing disadvantage.”

It should also have quite an impact on inspectors, Rowland says: “We want inspectors to be hit in the face by the school strategy and understand and get it straight away.”

This certainly all sounds inspiring - but also potentially a lot of work for time-poor leaders to draft up a statement that can do all this. However, what may be reassuring is each example’s statement of intent are fewer than 300 words - so no need to write War and Peace at least.

The next part of the form is where schools outline the challenges they face to achieve these aims. The example template includes six examples each of no more than a couple of paragraphs, which should hopefully not appear too onerous to those filling this out.

Bringing in research 

Then we come to the intended outcomes section.

This is perhaps the section that will be giving most concern to those with the responsibility to fill out these forms as it has one column for the activities planned on how PP funding will be spent and, crucially, another headlined: “evidence that supports this approach”.

This requirement for evidence is a notable development and one that raised concerns when it was announced earlier around what would be deemed acceptable evidence and how schools would know where to find it.

The biggest concern though was if this requirement would essentially create a system whereby schools only felt comfortable using “pre-approved DfE evidence” - thereby removing their ability to take action based on what they perceived to be best for their setting and their pupils.

Rowland says this is very much not the case: “It not about a DfE-approved list of evidence that schools need to comply with, it’s an attempt to encourage engagement with research to help [schools] make better decisions and ask ‘what is the evidence for this approach?’”, he says.

That said, almost all of the examples in the templates do refer to the Education Endowment Foundation toolkit - perhaps no surprise given it was cited in the initial DfE announcement as the sort of source schools might use to justify their approaches.

School-based evidence 

However, there are also brief example entries based on internal evidence and insights. Such as, in the special school example, one approach cited is to spend money on, “enhancing the sensory regulation equipment available for PP learners with enhanced sensory needs, including autism”.

The evidence for this is then cited as: “We have observed that sensory equipment and resources such as mattresses, lap pads, tunnels, weighted jackets and additional proprioceptor equipment can be effective at providing support for our pupils with sensory needs.”

Rowland says he is keen for schools to be aware of this - that internal evidence can and likely should be part of their strategy documents: “The strongest strategy document will include a range of high-level, robust evidence and local, in-school evidence,” he says.

“It might be small scale evidence from something you have done internally - that is evidence. The key thing is - is this an approach that is helpful for our pupils, in our context?”

This should please those who had wanted to know if internal research was permissible, such as Julia Hinchcliffe, headteacher at Orchard School in Bristol, who raised this concern in April: “I assume research we have generated is deemed sufficiently ‘valuable’, too,” she said.

Speaking now, she says the fact this has been confirmed is a very welcomed development: “We were really pleased to see the level of detail included in the exemplar [and] the inclusion of internally-generated data and research on ‘what works in our setting’ as valuable evidence to support our PP strategy.”

A little late in the day?

Overall then it appears the templates have a lot to offer schools to help guide the new process of putting together their PP strategies - with numerous teachers welcoming their arrival on Twitter when Rowland’s posted a link to them.

Super useful and we can’t wait to have you at our school, next week to discuss further. These have come at the right time - leaders now need to take the time to sit back, review and reflect on a new approach to their strategies. Does it matter they’re ‘late’? For us, not at all.

- Mr Welsh (@_MrLukeWelsh) November 2, 2021

What a relief! It’s been really stressing teachers out not to have examples!

- Kathryn Kashyap #WhoWeAre (@KathrynKashyap) November 2, 2021

We’ve used these with @Lighthouse_MAT school leaders this afternoon. They are really useful.

- janine ashman (@JanineAshman) November 2, 2021

However, for all these positive comments, many voiced their frustration over the examples being released 58 days after the templates - meaning many now face rewriting what they had put together.

“The forms and the exemplars should have been published at the same time to save heads, who are already swamped, from having to make their best guess at completing the forms in September only to find we may have been totally off course in November,” one primary head told Tes.

“It is just another example of the DfE not thinking through its expectations before sharing them with schools.”

A similar point was made by Richard Horsfield, the headteacher of Brighouse High School, who said while the worked template examples were useful they mean staff now face time redoing work - a situation that could have been avoided.

“A worked example for a template which has been available for many weeks is bound to frustrate committed colleagues who have a tight timetable of work throughout the whole year and who have already spent considerable time completing a now-defunct template,” he said.

Rowland said he understands the frustration but says the group putting together the template examples wanted to ensure they were as complete as possible before putting them live and that everyone involved had ample time to review and amend them - and get ministerial sign-off - to ensure they were as useful as possible.

“I understand why people would have wanted them published earlier but I think it was more important to get them right and make sure they were really useful to school leaders,” he said.

“It was important that we got a range of views from seniors leaders and colleagues and ensure it went through a really consultative process.”

Useful insights - and ahead of the deadline 

It is also worth noting that for others the arrival of the template documents is not seen as an issue.

For example, Rich Poole, assistant headteacher in charge of teaching and learning and disadvantaged pupils at a secondary school in Hampshire, says as the deadline to submit the forms is the end of December, there is time to redraft what has been produced to match what is required.

“I started the writing of this year’s strategy as the blank templates were released in September but as we don’t have to post on our website until December, I can now use the example templates to check mine is correct,” he said.

Daniel Woodrow, the headteacher of St Gregory CEVC Primary School in Suffolk, takes this view too: “We’ve actually held off putting too much together because of the deadline and due to waiting for the information about catch-up premium and teacher-led tuition. So to have the template now suits us.”

It’s clear this issue of the timing will probably depend on where in the process a school was and how it will impact workloads. Either way, perhaps the key thing is that there is time at least to make any amends and upload the documents with plenty of time.

A long-term view

Once that’s done the next and final stage of the template comes into play - the review of outcomes in the previous academic year.

Like the statement of intent, the template examples runs to around 300 words here and shows the example school outlining the effectiveness, or not, of their approaches and any data points that underline this.

Rowland says this should help show schools that this section can be used to help make “small adjustments and changes” to ensure any strategy being taken remains valid - rather than just running on without actually having an impact.

And this, he says, gets to the heart of the purpose of the templates overall and the examples that show what schools should be aiming for: taking a long-term approach that gets schools to think deeply about ensuring funding has a real impact.

“This is about setting out plans for the long term and taking a long-view,” he says.

“It’s about moving away from a ‘we’ll solve this in the first term’ and instead taking a longer view that is based on activities based in evidence and delivering for long-term plans.”