is a doctoral researcher working in the School of Education and Lifelong Learning and the School of Politics, Philosophy and Language and Communication Studies at the University of East Anglia. He is currently pursuing research into the most recent reforms to English GCSE Literature and Language. He has a broader interest in education policy, policy enactment and aspects of poststructuralist discourse theory. 'You can't show impact with a new pair of shoes': negotiating disadvantage through Pupil Premium. The Pupil Premium policy was introduced in 2010 by the UK coalition government to tackle the attainment gap disproportionately affecting children from low-income families. Semi-structured interviews and policy documents are examined for the way the policy has been enacted in a single comprehensive secondary school in England. In 2014, this school had a lower population of Pupil Premium pupils (18%) compared to (29%) nationally and (25%) countywide. Despite this, the study provides evidence that the Pupil Premium has become invested within and gives rise to, a number of neoliberal techniques, technologies and practices. The study bridges insights from Mitchell Dean's (2010) 'analytics of government' and Ball et al's (2012) work on policy enactment to provide an in-depth, grounded analysis of the way the policy plays out within this school's context. It argues that the combination of national accountability measures used to show impact for Pupil Premium, and the school's ongoing struggle to raise overall attainment, leads school leaders and staff members to rethink the concept of disadvantage for their school population. This results in disadvantage being reconceptualised to fit a matrix of moral/pastoral obligations and efficiency/economic competitiveness, in which the tensions between these two orientations are uncomfortable and unresolved.

A lot has been written about the lasting implications of the Conservative reforms to English schooling, particularly changes made by Michael Gove as Education Secretary (2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014). There is a lot less work, however, on studying the role that language, strategy and the broader political framework played in the process of instituting and winning consent for these reforms. Studying these factors is important for ensuring that any changes to education and schooling are not read in isolation from their political context. Speeches particularly capture moments where intellectual and strategic political traditions meet, helping us to form a richer understanding of the motives behind specific reform goals and where they fit into a political landscape. This article analyses speeches and policy documents from prominent politicians who led the Conservative education agenda between 2010-2014 to illustrate how politicians mobilised a deliberate populist strategy and argumentation to achieve specific educational goals, but which have had broader social and political implications. Concepts from interpretive political studies are used to develop a case analysis of changes to teacher training provision and curriculum reform, illustrating how politicians constructed a frontier between 'the people' (commonly teachers or parents) and an illegitimate 'elite' (an educational establishment) that opposed change. This anti-elite populist rhetoric, arguably first tested in the Department for Education, has now become instituted more widely in our current British politics.

is a doctoral researcher working across the School of Education and Lifelong Learning and the School of Politics, Philosophy and Language and Communication Studies at the University of East Anglia. He is currently pursuing research into the most recent reforms to English GCSE Literature and Language. He has a broader interest in education policy, policy enactment and aspects of poststructuralist discourse theory.

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