What is Pupil Premium?
The Pupil Premium is an allocation of funding, in addition to main school funding, which schools receive according to the number of children in specific groups.
Schools receive Pupil Premium funding for:
- All children who are eligible for free school meals (FSM)
- All children who have been eligible for free school meals (FSM) at any point in the last 6 years
- All children who have been looked after by a local authority or children who have left local authority care on a special guardianship order or child arrangements order.
- All children who have parents in the armed forces.
The government awards the Pupil Premium Grant (PPG) to:
- Raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils of all abilities to reach their potential
- Support children and young people with parents in the regular armed forces.
It is up to schools to decide how the Pupil Premium is spent. The funding is not linked to a specific child, but the funding should be used to support these children. All schools are required to publish, on their websites, the funding they have received and how the money is being used.
How is the Pupil Premium spent?
Here at St Mary’s and St Peter’s the Pupil Premium grant is allocated to initiatives to ensure pupils reach their full potential, both academically and socially. The school aims to raise the attainment and progress of pupils eligible for the PPG so that their performance is in line with pupils who are not entitled to the PPG, both nationally and within our own school.
Some of the money is used to fund the support staff we employ, including their training in areas of specific children’s needs. For example, training being cascaded to all staff on improving working memory.
A greater number of intervention groups have been able to run due to the Pupil Premium Grant including, extra phonics, reading, writing and maths groups to raise attainment and nurture groups to increase pupils confidence.
An emotional literacy support assistant works with children on an individual or group basis to support their emotional needs.
During Lockdown
The academic interventions and ELSA support continued online or by phone, throughout the lockdowns, for those children not attending school and in-school for those on site.
Throughout the Lockdown periods the children also received personalised, interest and topic related, reading book bags; school owned laptops; additional necessary stationery and equipment as well as weekly paper copies of work set (if needed). These were delivered to homes by staff or collected from school by parents/ carers.
This year our aims are:
- To narrow the gap in attainment for PPG pupils in core subjects;
- To widen children’s learning experiences;
- To develop children’s wellbeing, emotional intelligence and resilience;
- To improve attendance and punctuality.
The staff in our school are aware of which children are entitled for the PPG or LAC funding and additional targeted support for those pupils is provided. Teachers and the SEN team, produce timetables detailing the different provision: which children benefit from the support; when the support happens; who leads the support; how the outcomes are assessed; what the next steps for the children will be. This information is reviewed in pupil progress meetings with senior members of staff and class teachers.
All of the information about extra groups that run in our school is maintained on our Provision mapping programme.
Download our Pupil Premium Strategy Statement