Ensuring Successful Outcomes
Friday 26th February 2027

Descriptions of the main themes and topics that our speakers intend to cover in their sessions are outlined below to assist you in gaining a strong overview of the conference and to help you choose the workshop sessions that best suit your needs and areas of interest:

9.30-10.30

OPENING KEYNOTE: Making the classroom work for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds: Inclusive planning, teaching, and assessment
In this opening keynote, experienced educator, author and chair of the Building Equity in Education Campaign, Matt Bromley, will offer practical insights into how we can ensure our planning, teaching and assessment is inclusive for students living in poverty. Matt will offer three Rs – reflect, reveal, and review – for making your planning inclusive. He will outline three Cs –classroom consistency, cross-curricular connections, and connections to the real world – for creating an inclusive curriculum. Matt will discuss three Ds– diagnose, deliver, and differentiate – for making teaching inclusive. And three As – accessibility, adjustments, and assistive tech – for making assessments inclusive. The session will touch upon making achievement equitable by addressing cultural capital bias, differences in prior knowledge, and anxieties of high-stakes exams. Finally, Matt will introduce his THRIVE framework which helps schools to secure future success for disadvantaged pupils

10.50-11.40

WORKSHOP 1A: PRIMARY Know your families: Building belonging and removing barriers Know your families. This is the golden rule at Crossflatts Primary School, which has placed belonging, culture and inclusion at the heart of its Pupil Premium strategy and its wider work supporting families who are JAM (just about managing). The Bradford school has 17% of students who attract Pupil Premium funding and many more families who are JAM. Furthermore, the 456-pupil school has above national average EHCPs and hosts an autism resource provision – meaning that “built-in” belonging has become crucial across the school. In this workshop, assistant headteacher Laura Reynolds will describe how the school has developed its hidden curriculum of belonging and the impact of their work to build bridges between home and school and create a culture of belonging and safety for parents, carers and children. We will find out about the school's Character & Culture Compass and how it uses its strong culture of belonging to help them identify and remove barriers for pupils, starting even before children arrive in Reception. We will hear about the use of pupil voice, family engagement, the children’s SEF, the role of class identities and much more. Laura will also offer her lessons learned, top tips and advice for other schools interested in adapting their approaches.

WORKSHOP 1B: SECONDARY Supporting Pupil Premium in key stage 3
In this practical workshop, Sajida Daud will dissect four key elements of support that key stage 3 Pupil Premium students often benefit from. Drawing on her work as Director of Learning Year 9, Sajida’s workshop will be broken down into these four pillars of support: Attendance; self-regulation; transition; family engagement. For each pillar, we will consider why this support is crucial, how it is best delivered, and the lessons learned from the Pupil Premium support in place at Dunraven School. On attendance, we will talk about the strategies for getting students into lessons that have been found to be effective, including the often simple solutions such as school breakfast clubs, support with equipment or uniform, enrichment activities, and celebration of good behaviour. On self-regulation, we will talk about interventions to support students’ self-regulation so that they can better manage their learning and behaviour. On transition, we will look at how we need to work with feeder primary schools to go beyond the raw data and discover the often hidden barriers to learning that pupils arrive with in year 7. On parental engagement, we will look at the simple yet effective strategies employed at Dunraven School to engage with and support families – from coffee mornings to Google Classroom workshops. WORKSHOP 1C: CROSS-PHASE From Pupil Premium Strategies to Practice: What are schools doing, what does the evidence say, and what could we do better? In this practical session, Dr Emma Dobson from WhatWorked Education will delve into the lessons learned from their research dissecting hundreds of Pupil Premium strategy statements. Over the last two years, WhatWorked

WORKSHOP 1C: CROSS-PHASE From Pupil Premium Strategies to Practice: What are schools doing, what does the evidence say, and what could we do better? In this practical session, Dr Emma Dobson from WhatWorked Education will delve into the lessons learned from their research dissecting hundreds of Pupil Premium strategy statements. Over the last two years, WhatWorked Education has studied the statements from primary and secondary schools and the session will draw together the most important lessons learned and translate them into practical principles for strengthening Pupil Premium strategy and practice. Emma will consider what Pupil Premium practice currently looks like – a short, accessible overview of what we are seeing across schools, including the most commonly identified barriers and approaches. The workshop will consider where practice and evidence align and where they don’t, especially those potentially high-impact approaches which remain relatively underused. Emma will also outline what stronger Pupil Premium strategies have in common, including precise diagnosis of need, planning implementation, and reviewing impact. Delegates will take part in a live practical strategy review activity using a simple checklist to interrogate their own approach and Emma will leave us with a small number of practical takeaways and actions that PP leads can take back to school immediately. The workshop will focus on the research findings, evidence-informed decision-making and practical lessons for schools. We will also be introduced to the wider research work of WhatWorked Education.

11.45-12.30
WORKSHOP ROUND 2 (MORNING)

WORKSHOP 2A: PRIMARY A tale of two schools: Adaptive teaching, Focus 5, & other approaches In this workshop two deputy headteachers working in two primary schools with very different Pupil Premium cohorts but within the same MAT will discuss the approaches they have used, the lessons they have learned, and their advice for other schools. Deansfield Primary School has a Pupil Premium cohort of 11%. South Rise Primary School has around 45%. Both schools are based in London and operate within the Compass Eko Trust. The trust operates a professional learning community across its schools to support Pupil Premium work and both schools have employed similar strategies, tailored to their contexts, to boost outcomes for PP and disadvantaged children. The workshop will focus on a number of strategies that have been tailored for each school including the use of adaptive teaching and metacognition/regulation techniques to support children in the classroom, work to address deficit language, and a focus on the importance of OPAL (outdoor play and learning). The workshop will also discuss how Focus 5 – a technique that sees teachers using class information and their own knowledge of pupils to identify five children in each class to focus on – works in practice.

WORKSHOP 2: SECONDARY Attendance and reading at the heart of Pupil Premium success
In this workshop we will take a deep dive into the Pupil Premium Strategy of Chiltern Academy, a school working in an area of high deprivation in central Luton. Not only does Chiltern Academy have 40% of its students eligible for Pupil Premium, but an estimated 20% are considered to be “just about managing” – living in poverty but not eligible for PP funding – and the school does a lot to support this cohort too. Despite the size of its disadvantaged cohort, the school has achieved 56% Grade 9 to 5 English and maths for its Pupil Premium students – significantly above national averages. As such, the workshop will give colleagues a whistlestop tour dissecting the school’s Pupil Premium strategy statement and identifying the interventions and approaches that have made the difference. Following the tour, the workshop will take a deeper dive into two crucial areas of PP work – attendance and reading – considering the range of interventions and approaches that have been put in place to reduce absence and to boost both reading for pleasure and general levels of literacy.

WORKSHOP 2C : CROSS-PHASE Speech, Language and Communication Needs: Addressing the poverty gap
In this workshop, speech and language therapist Kate Freeman will unpick the clear links between families living in poverty and children who have speech, language and communication needs. Recent years have seen a general rise in levels of SLCN among children and young people. However, levels among disadvantaged pupils have risen even more sharply. This workshop will look at some of the statistics before considering what kind of support at classroom and school level is required to help pupils with SLCN – especially those who are disadvantaged. Kate will consider what evidence-based interventions have been shown to be effective, what effective monitoring and evaluation looks like, and how teaching staff can be supported. She will consider the signs of undiagnosed SLCN in the classroom and the overlaps between these needs and other challenges such as SEMH, poor behaviour, and school absence. Kate will also discuss how SLCN should be covered effectively in your school’s Inclusion Strategy documentation

WORKSHOP 2D: Leveling the playing field: How a digital tutor, personalised by AI, is reshaping Pupil Premium support
In an ever-evolving digital education landscape, school leaders need sustainable, high-impact strategies for their disadvantaged cohorts. Drawing on our charity’s recent action research project, this session explores how our impact-proven model is being developed into an AI-enabled tutoring tool. This session offers practical, evidence-based learnings for school leaders. We will unpack our insights into the level of human oversight needed to make digital tutoring effective. We will share tested methods to drive engagement among disadvantaged learners accessing digital tutoring, alongside actionable solutions to overcome common delivery barriers to digital interventions in busy school environments. Crucially, we will address the ethical imperatives of this technology. Delegates will hear how to implement robust safeguarding measures for a digital age and how ethical AI adoption can help to close the emerging ‘AI divide’ between affluent and disadvantaged pupils and the attainment gap. Finally, we will demonstrate the strategic alignment of an AI-powered tutoring tool within your broader Pupil Premium framework, ensuring your interventions are safe, sustainable, and truly level the playing field.

13.30-14.30
AFTERNOON KEYNOTE: CROSS-PHASE Raise the floor, Remove the Ceiling, Open Every Door
In this afternoon keynote session, delegates will receive practical strategies for raising standards and opportunities for all disadvantaged pupils through developing exceptional pedagogy and provision for more able disadvantaged children. Led by Paul K Ainsworth, the CEO of the National Association for Able Children in Education, the session will dive into the attainment gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged more able students. NACE exists that all young people, including the more able, can develop their abilities without limits – no matter what barriers to learning they may face and no matter what school they attend. A core part of this session will focus on increasing challenge for all students. Paul will discuss identification of the more able as well as how schools can tell their IDSR story using contextual and performance data. Paul will draw upon the Removing Barriers research to consider practical ideas for developing provision in the classroom and will discuss the role of cross-curricular and supra-curricular enrichment.

14.30-15.20
WORKSHOP ROUND 3 (AFTERNOON)
WORKSHOP 3A: PRIMARY Ask Pupil Premium pupils what they think: Here’s what ours told us…
In December, headteacher Kurt Doyle sat down and interviewed all of his school’s 60 or so Pupil Premium children. This workshop will distil the lessons he learned from this eye-opening process and the subtle yet impactful changes he put in place as a result. The 20-minute conversations which took place asked disadvantaged pupils at St Peter's Catholic Primary School about a range of issues including what makes them come to school, whether they feel safe at school, what enrichment they would like to see, their experience of the school day, the extent to which they read at home and more. This workshop will break-down how Kurt implemented the interviews, how he chose the questions to ask, and how other schools might adopt a similar approach. He will also describe the range of changes to practice – many small, inexpensive and subtle quick fixes – which he implemented as a result. The workshop will touch upon parent and carer engagement, too, with Kurt keen to focus specifically on how to have challenging and sensitive conversations with families living with disadvantage and the importance of considering the language we use.

WORKSHOP 3B: SECONDARY Belonging, inclusion and the Pupil Premium Fostering a sense of belonging with both students and their families is a key tenet of Oriel High School’s approach to Pupil Premium provision; and is a whole-school priority aiming to directly enhance engagement with education, attendance, behaviour, and student wellbeing. This session will describe Oriel’s whole school Pupil Premium approach to building positive relationships with students and their families – especially those considered “hard to reach”. We will discover how the school’s vertical mentoring system enhances belonging and explore details of the school’s constant drive to grow extra-curricular connections, touching upon the new Enrichment Framework and Benchmarks. We will also find out how Oriel High School has linked belonging and Pupil Premium within its Inclusion Strategy. The session will include practical, real examples and transferable ideas and will aim to give delegates something to take away with them and adapt/try in their own school settings.

WORKSHOP 3C: CROSS-PHASE Closing the financial literacy gap The Three Spires Trust has placed financial literacy education at the heart of its response for its disadvantaged pupils. In this workshop we will find out how the Staffordshire multi-academy trust has developed and implemented a complete financial literacy curriculum. Three Spires worked alongside Build & Conquer Financial Literacy to develop the curriculum and, with a focus on disadvantaged learners, the workshop will consider the key barriers and misconceptions that can hold pupils back and consider what an empowering, in-depth financial literacy education looks like. The speakers will break-down key topics that need to be taught at each key stage – from EYFS to key stage 5 – to support disadvantaged pupils in particular, including issues such as financial harms, risk and gambling, understanding contracts, debt, budgeting, credit, ethical decision-making, The workshop will look at how financial literacy links to careers education and real-world transition – independence, employment, and long-term financial responsibility.

15.40-16.30 

WORKSHOP ROUND 4 (AFTERNOON)
WORKSHOP 4A: PRIMARY Supporting families via early intervention
The EYFS Core Offer at Three Spires Trust is combined with a range of preventative work and early intervention which supports families, especially those living in poverty. In this workshop, we will hear about how this work has been developed and implemented across the trust’s primary schools – and in particular at Hanley St Luke’s CE Academy. A key part of this has been working with families before they arrive in EYFS in order to identify barriers early and put the right support in place. At Hanley St Luke's, this approach has driven a sustained improvement journey, bucking local and national trends with a three-year upward trajectory in EYFS outcomes. By combining a strong EYFS Core Offer with targeted Early Help, family support and the rapid identification of need, the school has significantly improved children's readiness for learning and long-term achievement. Through a relentless focus on removing barriers, supporting families and securing strong foundations for learning, the impact is now extending beyond the early years with improved outcomes evident throughout key stage 1. The workshop will share the practical systems, structures and strategies that underpin this success, including: building meaningful relationships with families before school entry; identifying barriers to learning early including poverty, EAL, SLCN and social mobility challenges; developing effective Early Help and preventative support; creating an ambitious EYFS core offer that secures strong outcomes; using disadvantaged funding strategically to improve life chances; and translating EYFS success into sustained achievement across key stage 1 and beyond. Delegates will leave with practical ideas and approaches that can be adapted and adopted within their own settings to improve outcomes for children and families.

WORKSHOP 4B: SECONDARY Painkillers or Physio? Balancing short and long term approaches to improvement Schools often search for a silver bullet to improve outcomes for disadvantaged pupils – but it doesn’t exist. Effective Pupil Premium strategy requires leaders to balance short‑term interventions that secure immediate gains with longer‑term approaches that build sustained improvement. This practical session explores how secondary schools can consciously design that balance. Drawing on case studies from Hertfordshire and beyond, HFL Education’s Secondary Education Advisor Paul Jenkins will show how schools have improved attendance, foundational skills and GCSE readiness by combining quick wins such as smart screening and identifying what is controllable with deeper, more sustained approaches including building parental support for strong attendance and improving sub-grade 4 performance. Grounded in the ideas from his best‑selling co-authored book Making School Unmissable and his forthcoming book Getting Attendance Right, Paul will help leaders identify which interventions are most helpful and when, how to align Pupil Premium spend, with individual pupil needs, and how to balance day‑to‑day wins against longer‑term gains. Delegates will leave this workshop with a practical framework for balancing short and long‑term Pupil Premium interventions, tools for diagnosing when a quick win is appropriate, case studies showing what works in improving attendance and foundational skills, and evidence‑informed strategies that can be implemented immediately.

WORKSHOP 4C: CROSS-PHASE The school systems that inadvertently widen the gap In this workshop, behaviour expert Samantha Dholakia will explore the extent to which some of our everyday school systems can inadvertently add to the disadvantage gap. The practical, evidence-informed session will consider what happens when poverty shows up as behaviour in school and how too often our systems get in the way of the support that students need. For example, repeated removal from learning, homework or equipment-based sanctions, punishments relating to uniform, inaccessible reward systems, approaches to attendance and communication, or expectations that rely on resources and capacity at home. Samantha will discuss how we can begin to remove these barriers and how we might better respond when the impact of disadvantage becomes visible through behaviour, attendance, engagement, relationships, regulation and access to learning. Samantha will challenge deficit-based assumptions. Poverty doesn’t tell us what an individual child needs, and disadvantaged pupils are not inherently less able to regulate, engage or achieve. Instead, how can we become better at identifying the barriers sitting beneath what we see and what can schools then practically remove, adapt, explicitly teach or strengthen?