Pupil Premium

What is Pupil Premium? 

Pupil Premium is an additional payment allocated to schools to support children deemed to be from low income families or disadvantaged groups. 

Specifically the Pupil Premium money is provided for those students who have been on Free School Meals (FSM) at any point over the past six years (Ever 6) or those children who have been looked after in local authority care or have been adopted from care and is £935 per student per year. There is also a smaller amount of funding (£300) made available for children of parents in the armed services. 

The aim of pupil premium for is to overcome disadvantage ‘“How can it be that in a modern, open society like ours a child’s destiny is still determined by their background? How can it be that, despite all the promise on a four or five year-old’s first day at school …too often you can plot that child’s path just by asking how much their parents earn? Opportunity cannot only extend to the boundaries of the playing fields of Eton, or even Westminster.” DfE 2012 

Principles 

• We ensure that teaching and learning opportunities meet the needs of all of the pupils; 
• We ensure that appropriate provision is made for pupils who belong to vulnerable groups, this includes ensuring that the needs of socially disadvantaged pupils are adequately assessed and addressed; 
• In making provision for socially disadvantaged pupils, we recognise that not all pupils who receive free school meals will be socially disadvantaged; 
• We also recognise that not all pupils who are socially disadvantaged are registered or qualify for free school meals; 
• We reserve the right to allocate the Pupil Premium funding to support any pupil or groups of pupils the school has legitimately identified as being socially disadvantaged. 

Pupil premium funding will be allocated following a needs analysis which will identify priority classes, groups or individuals. Limited funding and resources means that not all children receiving free school meals will be in receipt of pupil premium interventions at one time.