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It may not be the clearest way to allocate extra funds to disadvantaged pupils, but it's the best there is, says Alex Sutherland.

Every year, the UK government allocates £2.5 billion to state schools to support disadvantaged pupils via the pupil premium. To figure out how to allocate these funds, the government uses free school meal eligibility to measure pupil socioeconomic disadvantage. The idea is that free school meal eligibility is linked to lower pupil achievement, and the additional funding can help state schools to narrow the achievement gap between students who receive free school meals and those who don't.

Yet some within the academic community and government recognise the limitations in using free school meal eligibility as a predictor for pupil achievement. Some have argued that other measures of family background, such as parental education or neighbourhood deprivation, would be more predictive - and would thus be better indicators of pupil deprivation.

There are two key limitations to using free school meal status. First, free school meal eligibility fluctuates with economic cycles, since the number of pupils eligible increases during times of economic hardship and shrinks during boom times.

At the same time, research suggests that parents feel stigmatised when registering their children as eligible, making them reluctant to do so. This results in too many or too few pupils being recognised as disadvantaged, which has a direct impact on funding.

The Department for Education commissioned RAND Europe and the University of Cambridge to measure the effectiveness of free school meals as a predictor of pupil achievement in England. The research considered whether other measures of socioeconomic status did a better job of explaining variation in pupil achievement at primary and secondary school.

Free school meal eligibility fluctuates with economic cycles

The study also tested household education, parental occupation, household income, household characteristics such as housing tenure, and neighbourhood measures such as neighbourhood poverty (measured by the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index). These, with the free school meal measure and a number of other pupil characteristics, were explored through combining data from the Millennium Cohort Study and Longitudinal Study of Young People in England, with publicly available data from the UK census and administrative data from the government.

Results were remarkably similar for primary and secondary pupils. When combined with the other pupil characteristics, models with measures of free school meal eligibility worked best, in practical terms, for explaining variation in pupil achievement. While models with parental education and parental occupation were marginally better at predicting pupil achievement, the potential costs of switching to either of these approaches far outweighed any slight gains.Switching to either approach would require significant investment to collect data, and collecting data on parents' education levels or occupations on a national scale could be a challenge.

Neighbourhood measures were a worse predictor of pupil achievement than free school meals. However, results did differ, with neighbourhood measures a stronger predictor of a child's achievement at primary than secondary school. This difference may be because of the much smaller catchment areas for primary schools or because the effects of peers are weaker during primary school.

More importantly, neighbourhood measures may only serve to exacerbate the educational inequalities that free school meals seek to reduce, as individual circumstances can vary widely within the same neighbourhood. Using such measures could mean that schools whose catchment area includes children from relatively poor(er) backgrounds in rich(er) neighbourhoods receive less funding, while those with children from relatively rich(er) backgrounds in poor(er) neighbourhoods receive more.

Despite (or perhaps because of) the well-known limitations of using free school meal eligibility, our research suggests that it is presently the most practical measure of pupil deprivation. Free school meal eligibility performs better and is more feasible to use than neighbourhood measures.
Alex Sutherland is the lead author of "Understanding the Factors Associated with Academic Achievement" research project
Similarly, other indicators that are marginally better in terms of predictiveness would not be cost-effective to collect.

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'Free school meals are still the best measure of deprivation'

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It may not be the clearest way to allocate extra funds to disadvantaged pupils, but it's the best there is, says Alex Sutherland. Every year, the UK government allocates £2.5 billion to state schools to support disadvantaged pupils via the pupil premium.

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Training/briefing sessions with ambassadors 

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Training/briefing sessions with ambassadors 

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Increase chance of underrepresented students progressing into HE

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Increase chance of underrepresented students progressing into HE

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Students have the opportunity to meet other students interested in same subject and from different schools

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Students have the opportunity to meet other students interested in same subject and from different schools

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meet current students

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things we need to run our activity

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- Expectations about going to University.

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https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:9dbd407d-8e64-4b11-8b97-ed8792775c1a/download_file?safe_filename=Harrison-challengingdiscoursesofaspiration.pdf&type_of_work=Journal+article

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F24
Science
Photography
Sport (TBC,late april mid may)
Architecture (running in Autumn 2023)

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Support students expectations about going to Uni

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Support students expectations about going to Uni

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Students gain an understanding of University study 

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Students gain an understanding of University study 

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Increased chance of progressing into higher education

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Increased chance of progressing into higher education

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Including: applications, enrolments.
Any Uni and Uni of Brighton

Focus on underrepresented students:
* Q1
* FSM
* Care experienced
* and TBC

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Progression of underrepresented students into HE

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Progression of underrepresented students into HE

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Existing gap between POLAR Q1 and Q5 students
Specific target at University of Brighton.

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Number of sessions?
Activities?
Approx number of students
Who is involved?

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To develop understanding of possible future pathways related to specific subject areas/ careers

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To develop understanding of possible future pathways related to specific subject areas/ careers

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Students have the opportunity to see university facilities

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Students have the opportunity to see university facilities

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Continuation
Progression
Completion
Degree Outcomes

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Students have the opportunity to meet and work with current University students (ambassadors) and academic staff

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Students have the opportunity to meet and work with current University students (ambassadors) and academic staff

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getting a better idea of what University is like

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Increased sense of belonging / expectations that students will fit in at university

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Increased sense of belonging / expectations that students will fit in at university

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To develop skills related to the subject area (success in subject)

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To develop skills related to the subject area (success in subject)

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Student meet experts in their field/subject of interest

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Student meet experts in their field/subject of interest

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Getting a better idea of the subject/field

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Currently, Access Gap between Q1 and Q5 students
Potentially, access of FSM students, cared experienced, home educated students,

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Students feeling confident they will get predicted grades, and go to Uni... etc.

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Confidence in skills (for attainment) TBC

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Confidence in skills (for attainment) TBC

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Increase awareness of what it is like to study a course/subject at University

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Increase awareness of what it is like to study a course/subject at University

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Increase sense of belonging pre entry (expectation that students will fit in at Uni)

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Increase sense of belonging pre entry (expectation that students will fit in at Uni)

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To increase confidence that they will success at Uni

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To increase confidence that they will success at Uni

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comms with parents/carers re. Saturday Clubs

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comms with parents/carers re. Saturday Clubs

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Develop skills (or confidence in those skills) linked to attainment

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Develop skills (or confidence in those skills) linked to attainment