Introduced in 2011, the pupil premium is a sum of money given to schools each year by the Government to improve the attainment of disadvantaged children. This is based on research showing that children from low income families perform less well at school than their peers.
For 2019/20, the school received £64,000 of pupil premium funding.
Every October, leaders (including Governors) review the outcomes of pupils in receipt of this additional funding to make sure this funding is helping children achieve at least in line with peers. This group looks at a range of data to identify what has worked well and more importantly, what we can improve on. Each year, we identify the key barriers to attainment. In our school these barriers are:
early literacy (including communication and language)
Once leaders have identified these barriers, they then write a report for the governing Board about the effectiveness of the funding and detail how the money is going to target improvements for the upcoming academic year. These annual report can be found here.
Our school adheres to national best practise guidance (recommended by the DfE) when spending its Pupil Premium (PPG) funding. Therefore, we use a tiered approach, targeting spending across the following 3 areas:
Following a recent review by the senior leaders, including governing body members, it was decided to separate a proportion of the funding for ‘wider approaches’, making this available directly to individual parents to decide on how this is to be spent. These individual PPG budgets will include £220 which will be available for eligible parents to spend on your child from September 2019.
Eligible activities include:
The government uses eligibility for free school meals as the main measure of deprivation at pupil level.
Children qualify for free school meals – and accordingly pupil premium – if you receive any of the following benefits:
These benefits have now been rolled into a single benefit, called Universal Credit.
Universal Credit is being rolled out, with an expected completion date of March 2022. All pupils who were eligible for free school meals up to April 2018 will continue to receive free school meals during this period.
Once Universal Credit is fully rolled out, any existing claimants who no longer meet the eligiblilty criteria will still qualify for free school meals until the end of their current stage of education (i.e. primary or secondary).
Children who are or have been in care, and children who have a parent who is or was in the armed forces, are also entitled to pupil premium.
Schools are responsible for recording the children who are eligible for pupil premium in their annual school census - you don't have to do anything yourself, other than making sure you return any paperwork that relates to the benefits you receive or your child's entitlement to free school meals.
If your child qualifies for free school meals, it’s important that you tell us – even if they're in Reception or KS1 and receive universal school meals for infant pupils, or are in KS2 and take a packed lunch – as this enables us to claim pupil premium for your child.
Come and talk to us if you’re not sure.