Pupil Premium

Guidelines on Pupil Premium

The Government believes that the Pupil Premium which is additional to main school funding, is the best way to address the current underlying inequalities between children eligible for free school meals (FSM) and their peers by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the pupils who need it most.

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.

Accountability

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 which 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 new reports for parents that schools now have to publish online

Funding

In most cases the Pupil Premium is paid direct to schools, allocated to them for every pupil who receives free school meals. Schools decide how to use the funding, as they are best placed to assess what additional provision their pupils need.

For pupils from low-income families in non-mainstream settings the local authority decides how to allocate the Pupil Premium. The authority must consult non-mainstream settings about how the Premium for these pupils should be used.

Local authorities are responsible for Looked After Children and make payments to schools and academies where an eligible looked after child is on roll.

Implications at St. Joseph’s:

St. Joseph’s targets our Pupil Premium spending on individual, named students in line with our personalised approach to teaching, learning and curriculum planning. The school has a clear policy on this.

We believe the best way forward is for the local authority and the school to work in partnership on the use of the Pupil Premium for specific students so we will respond constructively to any requests that they make.

We believe that we should pay particular attention to the way in which the Pupil Premium is used to support disadvantaged students at St. Joseph’s Specialist Trust.

The following principles will apply:

  1.  We will work in close collaboration with the local authority:
  2.  Our interventions will be based on up to date data from Connecting Steps and other recent reports:
  3. Our interventions will happen, where possible, in discussion with the family ( for instance, at an Interim EHCP meeting):
  4. Our interventions will be based on evidence of good practice (for instance, the Sutton Trust Toolkit : the Oxford School Improvement project):
  5. Any spending will utilise those examples of good practice which are shown to be high impact and low cost so that best value for the student can be maximised:
  6. The Pupil Premium spending will be closely linked to specific ‘narrowing the gap’ targets : English, Mathematics, PSHE and/or Therapy targets:
  7. Connecting Steps data will be recorded half-termly in order to keep the focus on specific and measurable small steps of progress:
  8. The Pupil Premium spending will be aimed at consolidating and strengthening good practice that we know works for that student and, except in exceptional circumstances, the school will not use it on new and untested approaches.
  9. Strategies used will need to show a direct and measurable impact on the student and/or his main teacher*
  1. The school will closely monitor and evaluate all Pupil Premium interventions and an annual report will be made to the SLT and the Governing Body by the Vice-Principal (I and A) on its effectiveness and value for money. The policy will be linked to our website.

*By ‘teacher’ we also include:
Key support staff who might also work very closely with the student (Higher Level Teaching Assistant; Senior Teaching Assistant; Therapist or Education Link Worker).

Pupil Premium Strategy Statement

Pupil Premium Grant Guidelines

Sports Premium Statement