Pupil Premium
What is Pupil Premium?
Pupil Premium was introduced by the government in 2011-2012 as an additional contribution to main school funding in order for schools to,
'Address the current underlying inequalities between children eligible for free school meals (FSM) and their wealthier peers by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the pupils who need it most’
DfE April 2012
The Pupil Premium is allocated to children from low-income families who are currently known to be eligible for free school meals (FSM) and children who have been looked after continuously for more than six months. A premium has also been introduced for children whose parents are currently serving in the armed forces.
Pupil Premium funding was extended in 2012-2013 to include funding for children who have been eligible for free school meals (FSM) at any point in the last 6 years (Ever6).
What do we spend the additional funding on at Oakridge Primary School?
The DfE states that it is for schools to decide how the Pupil Premium is spent as they recongnise that we are, ‘best placed to assess what additional provision should be made for the individual pupils within their responsibility’. (DfE April 2012)
At Oakridge Primary School, we have used our Pupil Premium to help continue funding to:
- Reduce class sizes by ensuring all classes have a highly qualified Teaching Assistant supporting the learning
- Securing more TA hours to run intervention programmes and support in class
- Run 1 to 1 intervention programmes
- Training on intervention programmes for TA's (and associated costs)
What impact does Pupil Premium funding have?
As a school, we have a responsibility to quantify, justify and measure the impact of the way we spend our Pupil Premium to ensure that this additional funding is being used to support the pupils for whom it is intended. Published performance tables will now ‘capture the achievement of those deprived pupils covered by the Pupil Premium’ (DfE April 2012).
Detailed outcomes of the impact of pupil premium are held by the school. In the interests of data protection, that information is not published openly in order to protect the identity of individual pupils. However, the results across the school for children receiving or not receiving FSM have continued to be outstanding despite the low allocation of funding. The strategy of targeting interventions at those children who require it is helping all children, irrespective of whether they receive FSM.