MERSEY DRIVE

Pupil Premium

Purpose

Publicly-funded schools in England get extra funding from the government to help them improve the attainment of their disadvantaged pupils. It is given to enable schools to support pupils who may be disadvantaged, to perform better, to raise their academic attainment, to close any gap between them and their peers or to provide opportunities they may not be able to access without funding. Evidence shows that children from disadvantaged backgrounds:

• generally face extra challenges in reaching their potential at school
• often do not perform as well as their peers

Nationally, the statistics show that pupils who are in receipt of FSM do less well than their peers in their attainment. The aim of this money is to try to close that attainment gap. 

Eligibility and funding

Schools get pupil premium funding based on the number of eligible pupils they have from the following groups:

• Free school meals
• Looked after and previously looked after children  

Tiered approach

Evidence suggests that pupil premium spending is most effective when schools use a tiered approach, targeting spending across the following 3 areas below but focusing on teaching quality - investing in learning and development for teachers.  

• Teaching: schools arrange training and professional development for all their staff to improve the impact of teaching and learning for pupils.
• Academic support: schools should decide on the main issues stopping their pupils from succeeding at school and use the pupil premium to buy extra help.
• Wider approaches: This may include non-academic use of the pupil premium such as school breakfast clubs, music lessons for disadvantaged pupils, help with the cost of educational trips or visits, and speech and language therapy

Schools may find using the pupil premium for wider approaches helps to:

• increase pupils’ confidence and resilience
• encourage pupils to be more aspirational
• benefit non-eligible pupils

Access

In order to benefit from the pupil premium, your child must be registered as eligible for free school meals (FSM) at any point in the last 6 years. All government-funded schools must offer universal free school meals to every pupil in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 regardless of the circumstances at home. This does NOT entitle you to the pupil premium. However, if you receive any of the benefits listed below, then you should apply to be on the Free School Meals Register, even if your child is currently in Reception, Year 1 or Year 2. This will then allow your child to access the pupil premium funding.

• Income Support
• Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• Support under Part 6 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• The guaranteed element of State Pension Credit
• Child Tax Credit (as long as you’re not also entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual gross income of no more than £16,190)
• Working Tax Credit run-on (paid for four weeks after you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit)
• Universal Credit   

Please read the following reports for details of how we  spend our allocation for the current and last academic years, and how it made a difference to our pupils.