Daily roundup: Pupil premium, child poverty and evidence-based practice

The pupil premium should not be used to plug a shortfall in school support budgets, but instead focus on funding programmes to improve educational attainment for disadvantaged pupils, The Young Foundation recommends. A new report by the foundation supported by the Private Equity Foundation and Big Society Capital, says the £2.5bn pupil premium should focus on finding "high impact" programmes aimed at reducing the number of pupils in receipt of free school meals who leave education without achieving five A-C grade GCSEs. It also calls for social investment to be used to develop and deliver programmes with greater impact.

A survey of 3,000 school support staff by the union Unison shows 85 per cent of children are coming to school hungry and four out of five are wearing worn out clothes or are without proper uniforms. The UK-wide survey also found that 57 per cent or respondents see children in poor physical health, 55 per cent report that children appear to be suffering mentally due to the effects of poverty and 55 per cent have seen a rise in the number of children relying on breakfast clubs in this school year. The survey collated the views of teaching assistants, learning support staff, school business managers, technicians, school meal workers and other support staff.

The Alliance for Useful Evidence has published a report that calls on public services to make better use of applying evidence based practice to how they work. The alliance, a network that champions the use of evidence in social policy and practice, says education, social care and criminal justice services need to develop "evidence ecosystems" that link research production with its practical use. A survey carried out by the alliance found that 97 per cent of frontline professionals consider evidence to be very or fairly important for informing decision-making in their organisations, but that most relied only on evidence gathered in-house.

A total of £25m has been made available by the Big Lottery Fund for family projects in Northern Ireland. The BBC reports that Reaching Out: Supporting Families programme will award grants of between £500,000 and £700,000 to family based projects. "It is understood and accepted that offering help sooner rather than later can make a big difference to outcomes for children, young people and families," Joanne McDowell, Northern Ireland director of the Big Lottery Fund said.