Pupil premium is additional funding received by schools. This funding is allocated to schools based on the number of children who come from low-income families – this is defined as those who are currently known to be eligible for free school meals (FSM); the funding  also includes pupils who have been eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years; children who have been officially been ‘looked after’ continuously for more than six months and children where a parent serves in the armed forces or have been over the past six years.

This funding has been in place for a number of years and is a key Government priority, based on  findings that show that, as a group, children who have been eligible for free school meals at any point in time have consistently lower educational attainment than those who have never been eligible.

Whilst applications are often mainly based around this group of children being eligible for a free school meal, it is important to note that a pupil does not need to have a school dinner although we strongly encourage parents/carers to still apply if they think their child may be eligible as the money received by school for each eligible child is considerable and can have an impact on the service we can provide for their education.

At £1,320 per eligible pupil, this money is for schools to decide how to use in order to improve educational attainment of children from less privileged backgrounds. The pupil premium has the potential to have a great impact on the attainment, and future life chances, of pupils.

How we spend the pupil premium

Our provision plan shows how we are using the pupil premium and the specific outcomes each initiative is having. Our breakdown shows how we are using the pupil premium and the aims for each initiative; this includes how we’ve spent the pupil premium in previous years.)

However, we know that all children are different and have different needs. Therefore, if we feel that a child would benefit in a different way, we will invest our pupil premium to support them accordingly.

A large proportion of our funding is spent on staffing, including funding an extra teacher, staffing homework club, before school intervention/booster sessions or our nurturing lunchtime ‘Hub’ group.  Classroom staff are aware of which children are eligible for the pupil premium and provide additional, frequent targeted support for these pupils.  Teachers are required to produce timetables detailing different support activities: what the learning objective is, when the support will happen, who will lead the support (either the teacher or the teaching assistant) and who will benefit from the support.  Children with pupil premium must be part of this.

I was so happy when I knew I could go to Kingswood, I nearly cried. I’ve got so many favourite memories” (Year 6 after residential visit, July 2016, partly paid for through Pupil Premium).