Pupil Premium Strategy
2022-2024

What is the Pupil Premium? 

The Pupil Premium is additional funding that is provided by the government to schools to help improve the attainment of pupils from low income families and those who are ‘looked-after’ and previously ‘looked after’. This is because these pupils generally face extra challenges in reaching their potential at school and often do not perform as well as their peers.  

Schools receive £955 for each student that has been eligible for free school meals at any point within the last six years and additional funding for those who are classed as ‘looked after’. The additional Pupil Premium budget is calculated based on the number of students meeting the criteria in the January of the previous school year. This is not funding allocated to each student as this additional funding can be allocated to staffing or other costs that provide additional support to help students who need it to overcome any barriers to learning.  

It is up to school leaders to decide how to spend the Pupil Premium as it is recognised that they are best placed to assess need and use funding to improve attainment.  

(Adapted from; https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium/pupil-premium

Pupil Premium Strategy Aims 

Our aim is that all students, regardless of their background or challenges they face, make good progress and achieve well.
Our pupil premium strategy will seek to support disadvantaged students to achieve that goal through a range of evidence-informed strategies which will reduce any apparent barriers within our own context. Whilst we will consider individual student needs, we will also focus on addressing common challenges identified as being barriers to a wider range of students. We will analyse our own context to fully understand our students needs and will not make assumptions about the barriers that exist for disadvantaged students.

It is the decision of school leaders to decide how to spend the Pupil Premium as it is recognised that they are best placed to assess need and use funding to improve attainment. This is not funding allocated to each student, as this additional funding can be allocated to staffing or other costs, that provide additional support to help students who need it to overcome any barriers to learning. Aspects of our strategy will benefit students who do not qualify for the Pupil premium, but, we will always ensure that there is no detrimental impact to other students of our policy implementation.
We recognise the importance of quality first teaching and will focus on this to ensure that all students have access to excellent teaching, in every lesson, every day. This has the been proven to have the most significant impact on closing the disadvantaged attainment gap but will also benefit other students.

To ensure a successful strategy we will:

  • assess the specific needs of our disadvantaged students.
  • make disadvantaged students a focus in all aspects of the school life.
  • Provide intervention where it is need quickly and appropriately.

Evidence informed strategy 

We are committed to using an evidence informed approach when making strategic decisions about the spending of the Pupil Premium. As such, we use a range of resources including the Education Endowment Foundation Teaching and Learning Toolkit (here, EEF), the Sutton Trust report into Pupil Premium spending (here, Sutton Trust) and our own evidence and experience of what works within our school context.