The Pupil Premium and policy transfer in English standalone and system leader multi-academy trust academies

ABSTRACT

As England attempts to close educational attainment gaps faced by socioeconomically disadvantaged children using Pupil Premium funding, no attention is given to how different types of academies do so, nor to policy transfer’s role in informing policies for disadvantaged pupils. Employing a qualitative comparative case study methodology with semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis, this research compares five primary standalone academies with five system leader multi-academy trust academies. It finds all academies support disadvantaged children with academic, pastoral and extracurricular provision. This is justified by voluntary and coercive policy transfer extending across space and time, in addition to evidence-based policies and school-specific needs prioritised to varying degrees across academy types. Overall, system leader multi-academy trust academies’ structure and composition facilitate policy transfer through horizontal and vertical spread of successful practices compared to standalone academies.

KEYWORDS:

• Academies
• disadvantage
• pupil premium
• policy transfer
• multi-academy trust
• standalone academy

Acknowledgments

I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to Dr Tania Burchardt and Professor Anne West for their valuable feedback on my research, as well as to the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. I would also like to thank every interview participant for sharing their time and knowledge with me for the purposes of this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Basma B. Yaghi

Basma B. Yaghi is a Research Assistant at the Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science.