The Department stressed to us the importance of schools and other providers being able to spend funding effectively.74 The Department has expanded the support provided to schools to help them decide how to spend pupil premium funding. This includes signposting schools to the work of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), one of government’s designated What Works Centres.75 In relation to pupil premium, the Department stressed that it asked schools to spend funding through evidence–based interventions using EEF’s toolkit that provided a clear guide to schools. The toolkit recommended that about a half of pupil premium be spent on high–quality teaching, a quarter on individual–level targeted interventions and a quarter on supporting wider outcomes such as attendance.76 The Department also described providing guidance to help schools develop mandatory pupil premium statements, amending the template to encourage adding links to evidence, and providing a “menu” of evidence–based approaches to consider.77 It said that most of the statements it had sampled linked back to the evidence base.78