Pupil Premium
If your child qualifies for free school meals, it’s important that you tell school – even if they take a packed lunch – as this enables us to claim pupil premium.
The parent's guide to the pupil premium
If your child is eligible for free school meals, they may also be entitled to a sum of money paid to their school to boost their learning. We explain the ins and outs of the pupil premium for parents.
What is the pupil premium?
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. Often, children who are entitled to pupil premium face challenges such as poor language and communication skills, less family support, lack of confidence and issues with attendance and punctuality. The pupil premium is intended to directly benefit the children who are eligible, helping to narrow the gap between them and their classmates.
Is your child eligible?
Schools are given a pupil premium for:
- Children who have qualified for free school meals at any point in the past six years. The school receives £1300 for each of these children.
- Children who have been looked after under local authority care for more than one day. These children are awarded a premium of £1900.
How is it spent?
Schools can choose how to spend their pupil premium money, as they are best placed to identify what would be of most benefit to the children who are eligible.
Common ways in which schools spend their pupil premium fund include:
- Extra one-to-one or small-group support for children within the classroom.
- Employing extra teaching assistants to work with classes.
- Running catch-up sessions before or after school, for example for children who need extra help with maths or literacy.
- Running a school breakfast club to improve attendance.
- Providing extra tuition for able children who receive the pupil premium, for example in preparation for Level 6 SATs.
- Providing music lessons for children whose families would be unable to pay for them.
- Funding educational trips and visits.
- Paying for additional help such as speech and language therapy or family therapy.
- Funding English classes for children who speak another language at home.
- Investing in resources that boost children’s learning, such as laptops or tablets.
However, some schools use their pupil premium in more creative ways. In the annual Pupil Premium Awards, recent winners spent their money on a bike for a child who was repeatedly late for school due to missing the bus, a nutritionist for a Year 5 child whose poor diet was causing behavioural and learning difficulties, and shoes and school uniform – including a PE kit – for a disadvantaged child in Year 3.
Often, all of the children in a class will reap some benefit from how the school spends its pupil premium: for example, if the money is used to fund an additional teaching assistant who works across the whole class, rather than providing one-to-one support. But research shows that the fund does help to narrow gaps between disadvantaged children and their peers, particularly in English and maths.
Can you influence how the pupil premium is used?
There is no obligation for your school to consult you about how they use the money they claim for your child, although some schools may involve parents. However, schools do have to show that they are using their pupil premium fund appropriately. This is measured through Ofsted inspections and annual performance tables showing the progress made by children who are eligible for pupil premium. In addition, they have to publish details online, including how much money they have been allocated, how they intend to spend it, how they spent their previous year’s allocation and how it made a difference to the attainment of disadvantaged pupils.
How to claim your child’s pupil premium
Your child may be eligible for free school meals – and accordingly pupil premium – if you receive any of the following benefits:
- Income support
- Income-based jobseekers’ allowance
- Income-related employment and support allowance
- Support under Part IV of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
- The guaranteed element of state pension credit
- Child tax credit, provided that you are not also entitled to working tax credit and have an annual gross income of £16,190 or less
- Universal credit
Your child’s school will be able to tell you what you need to do to register your child as eligible.
From September 2014, all children in Reception and Years 1 and 2 will qualify for free school meals, regardless of their family income, but only the children who would have qualified for free meals under the above income-based criteria will receive the pupil premium.
If your child qualifies for free school meals, it’s important that you tell their school – even if they take a packed lunch – as this enables them to claim pupil premium.
Pupil Premium Strategy
What is the Pupil Premium?
‘Schools receive Pupil Premium funding from the Government to help address inequalities in pupil achievement and opportunity. The Government believes that the Pupil Premium, which is additional to main school funding, is the best way of ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the pupils who need it most. The amount of funding that each school receives is based on:
• The number of pupils who are currently eligible for Free School Meals
• Children who have been looked after continuously for more than six months
• The number of pupils who have ever been eligible to receive Free School Meals over the
previous six years.
Schools have the freedom to spend the Pupil Premium in a way they think will best support the raising of attainment for the most vulnerable pupils. They are held accountable for how they have used the additional funding to support pupils from low-income families.
Pupil Premium Policy Statement
We, at St Edmund’s & St Thomas Catholic Primary School, aim to ensure that all pupils leave our school excited about learning and determined to succeed. We aim to ensure that pupils who attract Pupil Premium funding attain levels of attendance and progress at least in line with their peers. Where there has been underachievement in the past, we aim to close that gap.
It is our shared ambition that, as a result of high quality first teaching and effectively targeted support, all our pupils will achieve at least as well as all pupils nationally by the end of KS2.
The targeted and strategic use of Pupil Premium funding will support us in achieving our aims.
Principles
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We ensure that teaching and learning opportunities meet the needs of all pupils.
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We ensure that appropriate provision is made for pupils who belong to vulnerable groups. This specifically includes ensuring that the needs of socially disadvantaged pupils are addressed.
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In making provision for socially disadvantaged pupils, we recognise that not all pupils who are eligible for free school meals, (or have been eligible in the last 6 years) are socially disadvantaged.
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We also recognise that not all pupils who are socially disadvantaged are registered or qualify for free school meals. We therefore allocate Pupil Premium funding to support any pupil or groups of pupils that the school has legitimately identified as being socially disadvantaged.
Pupil Premium funding will be allocated following annual needs analyses which will identify priority classes and groups.
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Provision
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A range of provision is in place to support children who belong to vulnerable groups, including those who are socially disadvantaged. This provision has the full support of the Governing Body and includes:
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Providing small group work focussed on overcoming gaps in learning
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1-1 support
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Additional teaching and learning opportunities provided by teachers, TAs or external agencies
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Additional support for assessments, training and advice from specialists such as speech therapists, educational psychologists etc.
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Access to therapeutic interventions and advice
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Financial support for activities that broaden the curriculum
The work, funded by the Pupil Premium, aims to accelerate progress so that children make good or better progress and leave our school at, or exceeding, the national standard.
In 2017/18 the school received £65,000 in Pupil Premium
2018-2019 Pupil Premium Strategy
The Pupil Premium is funding in addition to the school's budget. Schools are free to decide how to allocate this funding to best support the raising of attainment for the most vulnerable pupils.
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Identified Barriers for Pupil Premium pupils include:
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Social and economic factors affecting life experiences
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Attendance rates
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Attitude to learning/education
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Additional SEN needs
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Emotional health needs
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EYFS – language and literacy skills on entry
Our strategy to remove these barriers is outlined within the attached action plan.
