Introduced in 2011, the pupil premium is a sum of money given to schools each year by the Government to improve the attainment of disadvantaged children.

This is based on research showing that children from low-income families perform less well at school than their peers. Often, children who are entitled to pupil premium face challenges such as poor language and communication skills, less family support, lack of confidence and issues with attendance and punctuality. The pupil premium is intended to directly benefit the children who are eligible, helping to narrow the gap between them and their classmates.

Schools are given a pupil premium for:

• Children who have qualified for free school meals at any point in the past six years. The school receives £1320 for each of these children.
• Children who have been looked after under local authority care for more than one day. These children are awarded a premium of £1900.
• Pupils who are recorded as an Ever 6 Service Child or in receipt of a child pension from the Ministry of Defence are awarded a service premium of £300.

Schools can choose how to spend their pupil premium money, as we are best placed to identify what would be of most benefit to the children who are eligible.

Common ways in which we spend our pupil premium fund include:

• Extra one-to-one or small-group support for children within the classroom.
• Employing extra teaching assistants to work with classes.
• Running catch-up sessions before or after school, for example for children who need extra help with maths or literacy.
• Interventions to boost learning and narrow the gap between peers
• Nurture interventions such as art groups, forest school and Lego clubs
• Curriculum enrichment days/weeks such as science week, topic days and grounds day
• A range of clubs such as gardening, multi-sports and homework club.
• Running a school breakfast club to improve attendance.
• Providing extra tuition for able children who receive the pupil premium, for example in preparation for year 6 SATs.
• Funding educational trips and visits.
• Paying for additional help such as speech and language therapy or family therapy.
• Investing in resources that boost children’s learning, such as laptops or tablets.
• Employ Behaviour Specialist/ELSA support and Home School Link Workers

Often, all of the children in a class will reap some benefit from how we spend pupil premium: for example, if the money is used to fund an additional teaching assistant who works across the whole class, rather than providing one-to-one support.

Research shows that the fund does help to narrow gaps between disadvantaged children and their peers, particularly in English and maths.

There is no obligation for us to consult you about how we use the money they claim for your child, although we do like to involve parents. We do have to show that we are using our pupil premium fund appropriately. This is measured through Ofsted inspections and annual performance tables showing the progress made by children who are eligible for pupil premium.

In addition, we have to publish details online, including how much money we have been allocated, how we intend to spend it, how we spent our previous year’s allocation and how it made a difference to the attainment of disadvantaged pupils.

Your child may be eligible for free school meals – and accordingly pupil premium – if you receive any of the following benefits since May 2011:

• 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
• Universal credit
• If your child is a Looked After child or provided with accommodation by an English local authority.
• Children adopted from care or who have left care – who were looked after by an English or Welsh local authority immediately before being adopted, or who left local authority care on a special guardianship order or child arrangements order.
• Children recorded as a service child

To register your child as eligible, you need to fill out a form available in the school office.

From September 2014, all children in Reception and Years 1 and 2 qualify for free school meals, regardless of their family income, but only the children who would have qualified for free meals under the above income-based criteria will receive the pupil premium.

If your child qualifies for free school meals, it’s important that we know – even if they take a packed lunch – as this enables us to claim pupil premium.

The pupil premium strategy review takes place annually each November.