Pupil Premium

PUPIL PREMIUM SUMMARY 2019 – 2021

The Pupil Premium is additional funding provided to schools by the Government to help address the under-achievement of children who are eligible for Free School Meals, ‘Looked After Children’ (in care of the Local Authority for at least six months), adopted children or children of service families.  In 2012, this funding was extended to include pupils who have been eligible for FSM within the last six years. Schools are free to spend the Pupil Premium in ways that they judge best to raise the achievement of these children.  They are required to publish information about this on the website.  What follows is a summary of our Pupil Premium funding, how we have spent it and what impact it has had on pupil achievement.

Research shows that the main barriers that can limit the educational achievement of some children from disadvantaged or ‘low-income’ backgrounds are: fewer opportunities for language development from an early age; lower family expectations and aspirations about how much children can achieve at school; fewer opportunities to engage in a wide range of experiences and additional ‘enrichment’ activities.

Our main strategies for overcoming these barriers are quality first teaching, irresistible learning and high expectations for all children to achieve academically, creatively, personally and socially. We also use the Pupil Premium funding for a range of interventions. Some interventions benefit all pupils, some are specifically targeted at groups or individuals on FSM. Some interventions are directly related to pupil attainment (i.e. 1:1 tuition, booster groups), others have a more indirect impact on achievement by raising aspiration, self-esteem and broadening horizons (i.e. counselling, aspirational clubs, opportunities for adventure).

In 2019-20 we spent our Pupil Premium funding in the following ways:

• Additional teachers and teaching assistants in Year 6 for English and Maths lessons to enable more targeted teaching.
• Additional reading and phonics support in Year 1 and Year 2.
• Time for whole school focus on tracking the achievement of pupil premium children and responding to any concerns.
• Additional float teaching assistants to provide more targeted support within lessons across the school.
• Additional adults in nursery to boost children’s language development.
• Pupil Parent Support Worker whose work is primarily focused on improving the learning opportunities and parental engagement of pupils with barriers to their learning (i.e. attendance, attitude).
• A Learning Mentor to support children and families in KS1 and Reception.
• Place2Be – a school based counselling and therapeutic service designed to support children and families in challenging circumstances.
• Subsidies for breakfast clubs, after school clubs, school trips, residential weeks/weekends, music tuition and special events, including an additional school journey in the Summer Holidays.
• An additional day of administration staff to enable a whole day to be spent supporting attendance issues.
• Additional admin support to increase services provided through the Children’s Centre.
• Increasing the support for eligible families with children under five through the Children’s Centre.
• Spaces for children collected by the Walking Bus.
• An increased range of workshops for parents  –  e.g. Phonics, Language Development, Reading, Maths.
• Increasing the number of clubs available after school.
• Rocket Readers for children in years 3-6.
• Team Around the Pupil Progress meetings (TAPP) to enable all teaching staff to discuss effective strategies for targeted children.

Looked After Children are targeted more specifically, this funding (£1900 per child) is received termly and will follow the child if they leave the school.

The total expenditure on the provision above exceeded the Pupil Premium funding allocation. The evaluation of this provision and its outcomes can be seen below.

PUPIL PREMIUM ATTAINMENT  ~  OUTCOMES  ~   2019-2020

Pupil outcomes were not able to be measured or reported at the end of 2019-2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Our strategy for 2020-2021 will be to continue with the provision described above in any way that Covid restrictions allow.

If you would like to apply for Pupil Premium please click HERE to be redirected to Lewisham’s Website where you can complete an application online.  Alternatively  please download and complete the Application Form to apply for Free School Meals and Pupil Premium or ask for a paper copy from the office.