Pupil Premium was introduced by the Department for Education (DfE) in 2011, as additional funding for pupils who receive free school meals and who are looked after children. This is because the DfE has recognised that good education is the key to improving young people’s life chances. This is particularly true for children from low-income families, or who are looked after children, who are far less likely, according to evidence, to leave school with good GCSE results than other children. The pupil premium, using additional resources from outside the school’s budget, is intended to address the current inequalities by ensuring that funding reaches the pupils who need it most.
The pupil premium has also been introduced for children whose parents are currently serving in the armed forces. This service premium is designed to address the emotional and social well-being of these pupils.
The DfE have stated that schools have the right to spend this funding as they see fit based upon their knowledge of pupil needs. “Schools, headteachers and teachers will decide how to use the Pupil Premium allocation, as they are best placed to assess what additional provision should be made for individual pupils.”
At Brookside Primary School, we strive for achievement for all our pupils. Our pastoral care and rigorous monitoring and tracking of all pupils helps us to identify any pupils who are at risk of not making sufficient progress and this has helped us to plan and implement good intervention strategies. With smaller numbers of pupil premium eligible pupils, value for money is central to sustained improvements in both well-being and academic achievement. As a high achieving school set within the context of a deprivation indicator that is below the national, there is the potential challenge that less advantaged pupils do not have the same starting point, experiences or support as their peers. Our belief is that opportunities in a wide range of experiences such as music lessons and sporting opportunities are integral to opportunity and entitlement. This includes some new and discrete activities and interventions that we have always employed that are known to support pupil progress and attainment. Some have cost implications and others have required time within staff learning sessions, INSET and staff time to research theory and current pedagogical developments in education.
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