Please follow the link our PPG Strategy:
St Sidwell's Pupil Premium Strategy 2023-2024 & Review of 2022/23
What is the Pupil Premium Grant?
The Pupil Premium is an allocation of additional funding given to schools to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils and close the gap between them and their peers. The funding is intended to accelerate progress and raise attainment.
The Pupil premium is allocated to children from low-income families who are currently known to be eligible for FSM in both mainstream and non-mainstream settings and children who have been looked after continuously for more than six months. It is also used for pupils who have been on the FSM register but no longer qualify. Schools have the freedom to spend the Premium, which is additional to the underlying schools budget, in a way they think will best support the raising of attainment for the most vulnerable pupils.
The amount of Pupil Premium funding a school receives is calculated according to the number of pupils who meet the eligibility criteria set by the government.
Pupil Premium Funding
The funding is based on whether a child is eligible for free school meals.
The Department of Education will allocate the following amounts for 2020/21:
- £1,345 per pupil who have been recorded as being entitled to free school meals at any time from reception to Year 6. (Ever 6 FSM)
- £2,345 per pupil for Looked after children (LAC) defined in Children Act 1989 as one who is in the care of, or provided with accommodation by, a local authority
- £2,345 per pupil for children who have ceased to be looked after by a local authority because of adoption, a special guardianship order, a child arrangements order or a residence order
Service Premium
There is also additional funding for supporting children and young people with parents in the regular armed forces. Schools get £310 for every pupil with a parent who: is serving in HM Forces or has retired on a pension from the Ministry of Defence. This funding is to help with pastoral support.
Who is eligible for Free School Meals?
All children who currently qualify for free school meals based on their family circumstances are entitled to pupil premium. This applies if parents receive any of the following benefits:
- Universal credit (provided you have a net income of £7400 or less)
- Income support
- Income-based jobseekers’ allowance
- Income-related employment and support allowance
- Support under Part IV of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
- The guaranteed element of state pension credit
- Child tax credit, provided that you are not also entitled to working tax credit and have an annual gross income of £16,190 or less
Context
When making decisions about using Pupil Premium funding it is important to consider the context of the school and challenges faced by some of our disadvantaged pupils. Common barriers to learning for disadvantaged children can be less support at home, poor language and communication skills, lack of confidence, lack of resilience, more frequent behaviour difficulties and attendance and punctuality issues. There may also be complex family situations that prevent children from flourishing. At St Sidwell’s we use the funding to ensure that our children from disadvantaged backgrounds are able to make the same progress as, or better progress than, their peers.
Principles
- We ensure that teaching and learning opportunities meet the needs of all of the pupils.
- We arrange that appropriate provision is made for pupils who belong to vulnerable groups and for those who may be disadvantaged, to ensure that their needs are accurately assessed and met.
- We recognise that not all children who receive free school meals will be disadvantaged and we also recognise that not all children who are disadvantaged have free school meals.
Provision
We believe that every child in our school has the right the be supported in their learning and to achieve the best that they are capable of. It is up to school leaders to decide how to spend the Pupil Premium funding. The staff at St Sidwell’s are best placed to assess our pupils’ needs and use funding to improve progress and attainment.
- 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 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 identified as being socially disadvantaged or vulnerable.
- Pupil Premium will be allocated following discussions amongst teachers and senior leaders, identifying the priority classes, groups or individuals. Limited funding and resources means that not all children receive interventions at one time.
- All members of staff, governors and teaching assistants accept responsibility for ‘socially disadvantaged’ pupils and are committed to meeting their pastoral, social and academic needs within a caring environment. This is an essential, integral part of the spiritual development of the whole school community.
All of our work through the Pupil Premium will be aimed at:
- Accelerating progress, moving children to at least age-related expectations, using interventions such as ‘keep up’ and pre teaching.
- Narrowing the gap for those pupils not on track to achieve the expected standard at the end of KS2.
- Ensuring early identification of additional needs and to promote early intervention programmes.
- Ensuring that there is extra adult support to facilitate emotional and social development.
- Using academic research (Sutton Trust report, Carol Dweck, Mary Myett, John Hattie, EEF) to make informed choices about the most suitable intervention programmes to use with our children to ensure we are promoting accelerated learning.
- Ensuring that children are not disadvantaged because of access to IT equipment at home.
The range of provision the School and Governors may consider making could include:
- Enhancing teachers’ subject knowledge and pedagogy to improve teaching and learning for all
- Additional teaching and learning opportunities or interventions provided by the school
- Providing small group work with a teacher/teaching assistant focussed on overcoming gaps in learning
- 1-1 support
- An opportunity to take part in our 'Personal, Social and Emotional' intervention
- Additional teaching and learning opportunities provided through learning mentors, trained TAs or external agencies
- Additional teaching and learning opportunities provided through learning mentors
- Targeted family support
- Support to achieve greater depth standard within their year objectives, deepening learning
- Music lessons for disadvantaged pupils
- Facilitating pupils’ access to education and to the curriculum: this may involve adult support or encouragement
- Facilitating pupils’ access to residential or enrichment activities such as educational trips or visits, ensuring that all children have first-hand experiences to use in their learning in the classroom.
- Extra-curricular activities
- Counselling
- Ensuring access to IT equipment to support learning in school and remotely at home, providing opportunities to access learning programmes and platforms.
Reporting
It will be the responsibility of the Headteacher, or delegated member of staff, to produce regular reports for the Governing Body, which will include:
- The progress made towards narrowing the gap, by year group, for pupils entitled to Pupil Premium funding.
- An outline of the provision made to support pupils who have been identified as Pupil Premium.
- An evaluation of the cost effectiveness, in terms of progress made by the pupils receiving a particular provision, when compared with other forms of support.
- The Governors will ensure that there is an annual statement published on the school website on how the Pupil Premium funding has been used to address the issue of ‘narrowing the gap’ for disadvantaged pupils. The Pupil Premium Strategy will be published on the school website and updated at the beginning of each academic year.
2019-2020 Evaluation of Impact
‘The DfE understands that due to coronavirus and school closures, it isn’t possible for schools to evaluate the impact of their pupil premium for all of the 2019/20 academic year.’ (The Key)
Instead, as a school we will monitor and report on the grant's impact at the end of the 2020/21 financial year. The report will cover the whole period between September 2019 and March 2021, giving most detail about the grant’s use and impact for the period between September 2020 and March 2021.