Pupil Premium

Pupil Premium – A guide for parents/carers

The Department for Education (DFE) have provided schools with some money specifically aimed at maintaining or raising standards for those pupils who have been in receipt of free school meals (FSM) at any time in the past six years and for those pupils who are, or have been, in care. This money is called the Pupil Premium.

Financial help for Pupil Premium pupils is available in many areas of school life, some specific examples of which are:

Year 7 – ADT contribution
Years 7 to 11 – Day trips, residential trips and Music lessons (all subject to a limit)
Year 10 – ADT contribution, books and revision guides
Year 11 – Vocational courses, books and revision guides, transport home after revision classes (in exceptional circumstances only if lack of transport is preventing attendance)
Requests for Pupil Premium funding for school transport and/or uniform are not usually considered at this moment in time, but particular circumstances should be discussed with the Headteacher.
Curriculum Support may be offered to Looked After Children, Post Looked After Children and Children Adopted from Care to help them to fulfil their potential across the curriculum.
Emotional and social support is also available if required.
The school may also be willing to contribute to certain out of school activities, including private tutors, Music lessons/clubs, Drama and sports activities.
We welcome the involvement of parents/carers in deciding how best to support their child. Parents/Carers should discuss any requests in confidence with the Headteacher.

For further information, please see The School Run: A parents' guide to pupil premium

Pupil premium 2021 - 2022

The amount allocated to the school for Pupil Premium, Recovery and Tutoring for 2021-2022 can be broken down as follows:

Pupil Premium funding allocation - £124,980 (including LAC/AFC and SPP).
Recover Premium allocation - £16,300.
Pupil Premium carry-forward - £10,581.
National Tutoring Programme funding - £13,300.

Total - £165,161.

After the upheaval and disruption of the past two school years due to the Coronavirus pandemic, in 2021-2022 we hope to return to a full programme of personal support and whole school interventions, many of which are specified in the paragraphs below.

The amount allocated to the school for 2020-2021 was £119,980. The school planned to continue to support pupils in a variety of ways similar to the interventions put in place in previous years (see below). However, once again, many planned interventions could not take place due to the partial closure of the school.

With the challenge faced by schools after closure to most pupils between March and September 2020 and January to April 2021, the school is aware that Pupil Premium funding is needed more than ever to fund activities and interventions to attempt to bridge the perceived gap in attainment and progress between those pupils considered to be disadvantaged and other pupils. The school is also aware that interventions used in previous years may still not be advisable under present conditions.

The amount allocated to the school for 2019-20 was £124,904. The money was spent supporting pupils in the most appropriate way to ensure they have the same experience as other pupils in the school and that they fulfil their potential. However, many planned interventions could not take place due to the partial closure of school.

Even so, we continued to pay particular attention last year to ensuring that the interventions which took place were as personalised as possible and aimed at the individual. Such interventions included additional mentoring, additional 1-1 support, especially in literacy and numeracy, funding small group work, contributing to, or paying entirely for, educational visits and trips, peripatetic music lessons, purchasing necessary school equipment and materials for pupils, paying for vocational college courses and funding transport to attend these activities.

We believe this wide variety of interventions, alongside whole school initiatives which ensure quality-first teaching and learning, addresses the needs of pupils, recognises the necessity of considering different influences in a child's life and will minimise the effects of a background which may be considered to be disadvantaged.

The amount allocated to the school for 2019-20 was £124,904

The amount allocated to the school for 2018-19 was £134,325

The amount allocated to the school for 2017-18 was £113,070

The amount allocated to the school for 2016-17 was £95,370

The amount allocated to the school for 2015-16 was £94,357.

The amount allocated to the school for 2014-15 was £90,258.

The amount allocated to the school for 2013-14 was £74,825.

The amount allocated to the school for 2012-13 was £43,800, which included back payment for all pupils who were on the free school meals register over the last 6 years.

The amount allocated to the school for 2011-12 was £14,640.

Date of the next Pupil Premium review: November 2022.

Attainment and progress of Year 11 Pupil Premium pupils 2019-2020 and 2020-2021.

Evaluating the impact of the pupil premium 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 is extremely difficult as recognised by the Department for Education itself. In response to an email from the Headteacher the Department for Education replied.

“We understand that evaluating the pupil premium’s impact in the 19/20 academic year will present difficulties after the school closures to all but a small number of pupils. Instead, schools may wish to monitor and report on the grant’s impact at the end of the current financial year - covering the whole period since September 2019 but giving most detail about its use and impact from September 2020 to March 2021.

School leaders will be considering how best to use the pupil premium once pupils return in September. Schools can update their pupil premium strategy statement for the academic year 20/21 at any time, not necessarily at the start of the autumn term. Many schools find it useful to do so by Christmas, so that they can spend time during the autumn term to assess the needs of their pupils, both new and existing.”

As the school was also partially closed between January and April 2021, the above statements apply to the academic year 2020-2021.

Data from the Centre Assessed Grades 2020 and the Teacher Assessed Grades 2021 are available on request.

The last set of data based on GCSE exams in 2019 is shown below.

Attainment and progress of Year 11 Pupil Premium pupils 2018-2019

	Progress 8	Attainment 8
All	+0.79	51.60
Non-disadvantaged	+0.89	53.85
Disadvantaged	+0.28	40.38

When two justifiable outliers are removed, the figures are as follows:

	Progress 8	Attainment 8
All	+0.84	52.30
Non-disadvantaged	+0.89	53.85
Disadvantaged	+0.57	43.65

Please click here to read out Pupil Premium Strategy Statement 2022-2023

Please click here to read our Pupil Premium Strategy Statement 2021-2022

Please click here to read our Pupil Premium Strategy Statement 2020-2021

Please click here to read our Breakdown of Pupil Premium Spending 2019-2020

Please click here to read our Breakdown of Pupil Premium Spending 2020-2021

covid-19 CATCH-UP PREMIUM

The funding for 2020-2021 was £69,360.

Please click here to read the COVID-19 Catch-Up premium spending summary 2020-2021

Please click here to read an evaluation of the impact of Catch-Up spending 2020-2021

LITERACY & NUMERACY CATCH-UP PREMIUM

The funding for 2019/20 was £11,531

The funding for 2018/19 was £11,080

The funding for 2017/18 was £11,209

The funding for 2016/17 was £10,500

The funding for 2015/16 was £10,500

The funding for 2014/15 was £20,000

The funding for 2013/14 was £16,000

Pupils involved in Literacy and Numeracy Progress Units 2019-20:

The Department for Education stated in response to the Headteacher’s enquiry:

“Final payments of Year 7 catch-up premium were made during spring term 2020 in respect of the Year 7 cohort which started in September 2019. Schools should publish information, as usual, on how this money was used”.

The funding for 2019-2020 was £11,531. For Numeracy, the money was spent on employing a teacher for one day per week from Christmas to the end of the academic year (23 weeks) to run small group or individual catch-up lessons with Year 7 pupils. Cost £6204.25.

For Literacy, provision is split between 5 teachers, each teaching one or two lessons per fortnight. Cost = £10,848.32.

As for numeracy, the first group ran for 3 weeks only before school was closed to these pupils. Data shows that all 6 pupils made progress each week with the starter activity of ’10 quick questions.’

Progress was extremely difficult to quantify due to closure of the school to these pupils. Teachers commented:

“I was reading a book with mine and then we did some activities/comprehension based around the book. I did notice their confidence started to grow as they began to enjoy reading aloud compared to the start.”

"For the lessons, we were reading "The Bolds" by Julian Clary. We were reading a section together and then discussing some aspect of it, i.e. use of language for different characters or personalities etc. We also used exercises as starters for comprehension. We did a baseline test at the start of the year but did not get time to do a second test. I did create an online test, in the same format, with the hopes of being able to give this data. However, neither of the groups managed to complete it despite prompts being given.”

“We worked through a number of reading and writing tasks designed to build up their confidence. Although there were no formal assessments as such I have their workbooks which I marked as we went along so you can see what improvements and areas we worked on.”

“With my LPU group (that I was covering SPAG with) I covered different types of verbs (modal, adverbs etc), nouns, pronouns, adjectives, punctuation, capital letters, prepositions and synonyms. At the start I set them a test to complete, and during lockdown I was also setting the group literacy tasks to do each week over that period as well. I then set up an ‘end of term’ test via Google forms at the end of lockdown, which were questions from a similar sats-style paper with the same number of questions/marks as the first test the took.

Only 3 pupils of 6 in the group completed the final test (despite a lot of reminding!). I do know that the second set of grades were higher than the first set of results. I also noticed an improvement through the worksheets they were completing in each session. Overall I feel the group were making good progress during the first few months we were at school, and the ones who attempted the end of term assessment also showed an overall improvement whilst working from home.”