Background

The pupil premium was introduced in April 2011 and is allocated to schools to work with pupils who have been registered for free school meals at any point in the last six years (known as ‘Ever 6 FSM’).

Schools also receive funding for children who have been looked after continuously for more than six months, and children of service personnel.

Sir Michael Wilshaw, Ofsted's Chief Inspector, said the fund needs to “help poor children to achieve as well as their more prosperous peers”. The money for children from low-income families who were eligible for free school meals and looked after children is targeted to ensure accelerated progress for all identified children, through extra support and intervention, to ensure that any performance gap is overcome. The attainment and progress of these groups is being carefully tracked so that we are able to report the impact of this.

As a school we aim to provide all children with the best possible learning experiences and environments. We are able to provide additional staff to support children on a 1:1 basis and in small targeted groups according to their need to develop their learning further or work on overcoming barriers to learning. This may be during the school day or after school. Some of this role is carried out by a teacher and others by additional hours of support staff time. As we value educational visits and visitors in developing a child’s understanding of world we live in, we will support families when paying for educational visits and residential trips.

A wider range of support services has also been purchased through the use of the pupil premium to ensure the children are accessing school, leading healthy lifestyles and the families receive the right support in order that they can make progress. These include Educational Welfare Officers to support attendance issues, Health professional to support physical and emotional well being and Parent Support Advisors to support the children and their families.

The progress of these children will be tracked and the SMT will analyse the impact of this upon the progress of the children.