The Pupil Premium

The Pupil Premium is an allocation of additional funding provided to schools to support specific groups of children who are vulnerable to possible underachievement. Schools are free to decide how to allocate this funding to best support the raising of attainment for these children. There are three categories of children that qualify for pupil premium:

Children who are eligible for free school meals (FSM)

Looked after children

Armed forces children

Key principles for using the pupil premium grant at St. Mary’s C of E Primary School:

1.      St. Mary’s is committed to raise achievements for children who are eligible for Pupil Premium and recognises the need for these children to make more accelerated progress than non-eligible children.

2.      St. Mary’s creates an overall package of support aimed to tackle the range of barriers including; attendance, behaviour, external factors, professional development focussing on improving outcomes for eligible children, improving the quality of teaching and learning, language acquisition, parental engagement, opportunities for first-hand experiences and development of literacy and numeracy skills.

4.      St. Mary’s uses assessment systems to track and enable thorough analysis of data (Reading, Writing and Maths) to identify children who are under achieving and why.

5.      St. Mary’s directs resources and interventions to accelerate progress of eligible children and close the attainment gap compared to their peers.

6.      St. Mary’s uses data to carefully track the impact of targeted spending (interventions, projects or pedagogy) on attainment and progress of eligible children.

7.      St. Mary’s ensures class teachers, phase leaders and subject leaders know which children are eligible for Pupil Premium so they can take responsibility for accelerating progress and accountability is shared across the school.

8.      The Governing Body is ambitious for all groups of children and closely monitors the school’s effectiveness in closing the gap between different groups of children.