Pupil premium

Pupil Premium is allocated to schools to work with pupils who have been registered for Free School Meals at any point in the last six years.  Schools also receive funding for children who have been looked after under local authority care for 1 day or more. 

The Pupil Premium is designed to support schools to raise the attainment for the groups of children who are entitled to it, using strategies that will often benefit all pupils within the school, through improving the quality of teaching, putting in place targeted academic support and implementing strategies across school that will support non-academic challenges, such as attendance and social needs.

The DfE has indicated that Head Teachers can decide how to use the Pupil Premium.  They will be held accountable for the decisions they make through:

• The Performance Tables which show the performance of disadvantaged pupils compared with their peers.
• The New Ofsted Framework, under which inspectors focus on the attainment of pupil groups, in particular those who attract the Pupil Premium.

In order to support the decision making process for how the funding is used across school, we first look at the needs of our Pupil Premium eligible pupils, identifying what these needs are using our in-depth knowledge of the pupils in our care. We then use research based evidence to find effective strategies that will enable these needs to be supported, developing and implementing our strategy based on this.

The main barriers to attainment for our pupils eligible for Pupil Premium funding include:

• low baseline attainment
• narrow experience of life outside of school
• limited access to language
• English as an additional language
• low self-esteem
• social and emotional difficulties
• specific learning needs
• poor attendance and punctuality
• difficulties in developing and maintaining relationships
• low expectations and aspirations

Through the use of our pupil premium funding, we aim to:

• ensure all of our pupils achieve to the maximum of their potential
• reduce the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers.
• provide enrichment opportunities for our pupils
• support the mental health and wellbeing of our pupils, and their readiness for learning

Our 2023/24 pupil premium strategy and evaluation of 2022/23 can be found here.