Finance and Funding

Pupil Premium funding was launched by the Government in April 2011 in order to raise the attainment of pupils that may be vulnerable to underachievement, and close the gap between them and their peers.  The funding is now allocated to children based on the following criteria: 

• Students eligible for Free School Meals in the last 6 years
• Students in Local Authority Care
• Students with parents in the armed forces

The money is allocated to initiatives to ensure pupils reach their full potential, both academically and socially.

As a school, we decide how the Pupil Premium is allocated and we are accountable for the use of the funds.  We have a responsibility to report on the progress of children receiving Pupil Premium and demonstrate how we are using the grant to have a positive impact. 

We have identified barriers that are most often felt by PP students. We understand that there are many reasons that students may, at times, underperform. We highlight this quickly and effectively by removing the barrier to the individual’s progress. We effectively track, monitor, and support our students using our data systems to assess academic progress, attendance and behaviour, and attitude to learning. We have also considered the impacts of the pandemic upon the most disadvantaged students in our school. We will be using levelled analysis to understand where these gaps are and consider how we close them.

We utilise the vast research the Education Endowment Foundation conducted to ensure our intervention programmes are effective. Many of the interventions stated below fall into the categories highlighted as effective interventions for our pupil premium students: one-to-one mentoring, behaviour mentoring, small group tuition, parental involvement, digital technology, and summer school. The research conducted by the EEF suggests that the above interventions can make progress for learners from 2-8 months.

To support the strategic planning and implementation of our pupil premium funding, we have divided the potential progress barriers for learners into 4 levels.  Further information can be found in the documentation below.

Our vision is to ensure no gap between the attainment and progress of our disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students and no difference compared to national non-disadvantaged students.  We understand that there are many reasons that students may, at times, underperform. We focus on highlighting this quickly and effectively by removing the barrier to the individual’s progress. We effectively track, monitor and support our students using our data systems to assess academic progress, attendance and behaviour, and attitude to learning.

The Government believes that head teachers and school leaders should decide how to use the Pupil Premium. They are held accountable for the decisions they make through:

• the performance tables show the performance of disadvantaged pupils compared with their peers
• the new Ofsted inspection framework, under which inspectors focus on the attainment of pupil groups, in particular those who attract the Pupil Premium
• the reports for parents that schools have to publish online. Our Pupil Premium evaluations are available for download via the links at the bottom of this page.