What is the Pupil Premium?

Pupil Premium is an amount of money allocated to disadvantaged children in order to close the achievement gap.

The government believes that the Pupil Premium, which is additional to main school funding, is the best way to address the inequalities between children eligible for free school meals (FSM), looked after children & service children and other pupils.  Three categories of pupils are eligible:

• Pupils recorded as ‘ever 6 FSM’ (pupils who are or have been eligible for FSM at any point during their 6 years of Primary school education)
• Looked after children and those children who have been adopted from care
• Children of Service personnel

Pupils who are eligible for the pupil premium need to be aged 4 and over, in year groups to year 11 in a maintained school. 

Pupil Premium is allocated straight to our school and it is clearly identifiable. Schools are free to spend the Pupil Premium as they feel is appropriate. The government thinks that schools are best placed to assess what additional provision should be made for individual pupils within their responsibility. However, all schools will be held accountable for how they have used additional funding to support pupils from low-income families and in care. The schools must report and publicise annually how the money has been spent and what the impact has been made on the achievements of the pupils.

Suggestions for how the grant is used:

Teaching 

• Schools arrange training and professional development for all their staff to improve the impact of teaching and learning for pupils. 

Academic support 

Schools should decide on the main issues stopping their pupils from succeeding at school and use the pupil premium to buy extra help. 

Wider approaches 

This may include non-academic use of the pupil premium such as: 

• school breakfast clubs 
• music lessons for disadvantaged pupils 
• help with the cost of educational trips or visits 
• speech and language therapy 

Schools may find using the pupil premium in this way helps to: 

• increase pupils’ confidence and resilience 
• encourage pupils to be more aspirational 
• benefit non-eligible pupils 

Accountability 

Schools must be transparent about how you spend your pupil premium so: 

• parents, guardians can understand your pupil premium strategy, this is done through the annual strategy document and 'impact statement'
• governing bodies can see evidence-based practice so they can consider the rationale behind all pupil premium-related decisions

Free School Clubs

• We will fund a KS1 and KS2 homework club to provide support and resources for pupils to complete homework effectively.
• We will run an Easter school for year 6 pupils

How we will measure the impact of pupil premium

On a half termly basis we will look at a variety of pupil data to assess the impact including pupil assessments for reading, writing and Maths, end of year outcomes for EYFS, Year 2 and Year 6, pupil attendance data and analyse pupil surveys to assess the impact on their self esteem.