The EEF Guide to the Pupil Premium

Published

Step 5

Evaluate and sustain your strategy

To secure sustained success over time, it’s vital to ensure that both new and existing staff are invested in the strategy beyond its initial launch.  This might mean revisiting and adapting implementation plans, refreshing professional development, and celebrating improved outcomes with the school community.

Sustain your strategy by making it everyone’s responsibility.

Step 5 will support you in developing ‘Part B’ of DfE’s Pupil Premium strategy template next year.

Put it into practice

Check back on and evaluate your intended outcomes.

Plan short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes to make sure evaluation of the strategy is ongoing over your three-year cycle. Meaningful engagement between leaders and your teams throughout the process is crucial for identifying what is working well and helping to make changes to practice that will stick.

Example – High quality teaching strategy

Short-term implementation outcomes

Teachers adopt and begin to apply agreed high-quality teaching strategies, with a shared understanding of how these support disadvantaged pupils’ access to learning.

Success criteria:

  • Teachers using core strategies in lessons, seen inlesson drop-ins
  • A shared professional language evident across PD sessions, feedback and meetings
  • Established PD structures with good attendance, participation and clear next steps

Medium-term implementation outcomes

High-quality teaching strategies are embedded and consistently applied across classrooms, improving disadvantaged pupils’ access, participation and responsiveness.

Success criteria:

  • Greater consistency in classroom practice – seen in lesson drop-ins
  • Improved pupil participation and access – shown through pupil voice and pupils’ work

Long-term final outcomes

Improved attainment and progress for disadvantaged pupils, with gaps narrowing over time.

Success criteria:

  • Improved attainment and progress for disadvantaged pupils; gaps reduce over time
The aim is not to ‘prove’ success in order to meet a benchmark. The aim is honest evaluation so that we know:

- If the things we’re doing are working as intended, for example, whether the practice is improving attendance, participation and outcomes.

- How to improve what we’re doing, for example, whether the professional development session led to the desired behaviour change.

- Whether to continue particular approaches.
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Jessica Mellor

Director, Great Heights Research School

Plan for sustainability

New approaches should be supported and monitored beyond the early stages of implementation. 

Sustainability is secured through ongoing evaluation and adaptation to pupil need. Approaches are embedded through consistent pupil and teacher behaviours. This may be through regular collaborative reviews within and across teams, alignment with whole-school systems, including policy, monitoring, and staff induction.

Continue to review and evaluate in an annual cycle.

Monitoring and evaluation should be ongoing and aligned to intended outcomes.

  • Evaluate implementation and final outcomes together: are intended outcomes being achieved? Are short and medium term outcomes (e.g. fidelity, consistency) on track?
  • Decide next steps: Should the approach be sustained, adapted, scaled, or stopped?

Change is an ongoing, cyclical process, rather than a linear procedure. The implementation of any new strategy — whether it’s a reading program or behaviour policy — requires flexibility, learning, and adaptation. We might think about this approach to leading change as heading towards the ​“next temporary better” rather than some distant and unchanging end-point.

Jon Eaton

Director of Devon Research School

School governors and trustees play a crucial role in improving attainment for disadvantaged pupils by providing support and challenge to school leaders. All governors should be aware of their school’s Pupil Premium strategy, ask questions, and promote a whole-school approach. We recommend all schools appoint a Pupil Premium link governor.

Take action

Do ensure evaluation of the impact of your strategy (on attainment and wider barriers to learning) is ongoing.

Don’t use just one set of data to evaluate impact.

Do ensure a range of staff is involved and engaged with ongoing delivery and improvement of the strategy.

Don’t over-rely on one individual.

Do iterate and change course as needed.

Don’t stick to an approach if it is not working.