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 are looked after for more than six months (LAC). In addition, Pupil Premium is allocated for children of families who are currently serving in the armed forces.

The pupil premium is additional funding for publicly funded schools in England to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils and close the gap between them and their peers.

Pupil premium funding is available to:

• Local Authority maintained schools, including special schools and pupil referral units (PRUs)
• Voluntary-Sector Alternative Provision (AP), with Local Authority agreement
• Special Schools Not Maintained by the Local Authority (NMSS)
• Academies and Free Schools, including special and AP Academies

We must publish details of how we spend our pupil premium provision and the effect this funding has had on the attainment of our children who attract the funding.

In line with this year’s school improvement priorities, we have evaluated pupil premium expenditure and assessed the needs of the children to ensure that all expenditure has maximum impact on our most vulnerable children. We aim to offer a bespoke package for individual pupils that focuses on specific areas of need. Areas for development identified include wider enrichment; academic progress; attendance and providing support to develop basic speech and language skills for our youngest pupils.

Having identified these needs, we drew up a plan of action (see 18 – 19 report on this page) to try and plug the gaps and show positive impact. The review of last year’s action plan (see 17 – 18 report on this page) was very successful and shows children accessing a wide range of activities, such as sport clubs, music lessons, Young Voices and educational visits/residentials. Literacy and speech and language interventions also proved to have a positive impact, as can be seen from the programmes’ entry and exit data, and support in class had a positive impact on progress in lessons. Staff are aware that should they have any other concerns these can be forwarded to the SENCo.