There is a whole world of weird and wonderful practices that go on in schools. I’d like to say that nothing surprises me any more but, in reality, things never cease to amaze me. It seems perfectly normal in some schools for all lessons to begin by copying down the success criteria, or for classroom displays to all meet the same uniform requirements. Just as there was a time when it seemed to be fairly routine for pupils to cover their exercise books with wallpaper.

Every now and then, though, a practice pops up that genuinely takes me by surprise. And often, I find that it’s far more widespread than I had thought. This week, I found out about a school that had made it a rule that books should be labelled so that everyone could easily see which children were eligible for pupil premium funding.

I’m sure it was well-intentioned. At least, I’m sure that whoever came up with this ridiculous idea believed it to be well-intentioned, but really? Do school leaders genuinely think that the way to best support children from disadvantaged backgrounds is to make sure that everyone knows who they are? No doubt many of these will be the same schools who insist on rigid uniform rules because they consider it a leveller that helps to avoid bullying. But who needs to look for scruffy sweatshirts when you’ve got your poor kids easily-identifiable in every class?

The argument, supposedly, is that teachers need to know who their pupil premium pupils are. I can’t help but think that if the only way you can identify such pupils is by the colour of their exercise book, then you’re probably not well-placed to meet their particular needs. Perhaps in a secondary school it’s difficult for teachers to keep all this knowledge in their heads, but then, what is the intended aim?

Pigeon-holing pupils

Are we supposed to teach the children with the red books better somehow? Should we intervene with them in some way? Or perhaps we should sit them all on one table just to make absolutely sure they stand out.

The worst of it is that it presumes that all such children are the same. Don’t worry about their names or their needs: just make sure that the children with the silver stars get the extra support. Doesn’t matter if they need it.

As a child, I would have been eligible for pupil premium funding through first and middle school. I’m sure plenty of other children in my classes would have been the same. That’s not to say that we all needed picking out in class. I was well supported at home, lived in a house with plenty of books, and benefited from a family who valued education. Perhaps some help with residential funding might have been welcome, but I certainly didn’t need to be singled out in class for some sort of imagined extra effort.

Some teachers have been ordered to mark the books of pupil-premium pupils first. Presumably, the presumptions here are that a) marking is a fruitful and productive intervention (it often isn’t), and b) that somehow teachers do it less effectively by the 20th book. I can’t help but think that that says more about the onerous requirements places on teachers than it does anything about supporting children’s learning.

And before anybody waves the Ofsted flag: there’s never been a requirement to label children in this way. If your school chooses to make it one, then Ofsted may well indeed take a look to see if your staff are abiding by your policy. But then if it is your policy to label children and their books in this way, you ought to be ashamed, regardless of what Ofsted might say.

Michael Tidd is headteacher at Medmerry Primary School in West Sussex

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