Pupil Premium Grant (PPG)
What is the Pupil premium?
The Pupil Premium Grant (PPG) is funding allocated to publicly funded schools in England by the Government to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils and close the gap between them and their peers.
The premium is allocated to schools for children of eligible school age from low-income families who are:
- Currently registered for free school meals (FSM) or have been in receipt of FSM at any time in the past 6 years (known as the Ever 6 FSM measure).
- Looked-after children and eligible pupils adopted from care or leaving local authority care under a special guardianship or residence order.
- Parents who are currently serving in the armed forces.
- Early Years Pupil Premium is also available to schools with a Nursery class to support disadvantaged three and four-year olds.
Schools are free to spend the Pupil Premium as they see fit, but are held accountable, and must report on how the funding has been used to support these groups of children. Schools are required to publish online information about how the Premium has been used, and what impact it has had.
The Premium is received on a financial year basis but, reporting is required on an academic year basis.
| Disadvantaged pupils | Pupil premium per pupil |
|
Pupils in year groups reception to year 6 recorded as Ever 6 free school meals
|
£1,320
|
|
Pupils in years 7 to 11 recorded as Ever 6 FSM
|
£935
|
|
Looked-after children (LAC) defined in the Children Act 1989 as one who is in the care of, or provided with accommodation by, an English local authority
|
£2,300 (less £500 retained by the LA)
|
|
Children who have ceased to be looked after by a local authority in England and Wales because of adoption, a special guardianship order, a child arrangements order or a residence order
|
£2,300 (less £500 retained by the LA)
|
| Service children | Pupil premium per pupil |
|
Pupils in year groups reception to year 11 recorded as Ever 6 service child or in receipt of a child pension from the Ministry of Defence
|
£300 |
The key purpose of our Pupil Premium funding is to enable all the pupils to reach their full potential. We work with our families and colleagues to make sure everyone involved with the child has high aspirations.
We recognise that barriers to achievement take a variety of forms and will do whatever it takes to support a child, both in and out of the classroom. We use all our resources to ensure that every child has an equal opportunity to become an empowered learner. In order to achieve this, we offer our children a wide range of opportunities, we always make sure these are accessible for everyone. If our PP children can’t get to experience an opportunity, at St George’s we try to bring it to them.
Although other children will often benefit along the way (and we would not seek to prevent this) we always keep PP children at the forefront of our planning when deciding how best to deploy our PP funding to enhance their learning, life skills and experiences.
A review of Pupil Premium’s impact is carried out annually and a detailed pupil premium strategy is also completed within school.
Pupil Premium Intent
St George's School will use the funding for disadvantaged children to enrich the children’s learning experiences and raise standards still further.
Pickwick Academy Trust
“Working together to provide the best schools and outcomes for our children”
Overarching Statement for Pupil Premium
What is it?
All schools within Pickwick Academy Trust have a culture of high expectations for progress of all of our pupils irrespective of academic or social disadvantage. We seek to provide an educational experience that is high quality, enjoyable and inclusive for all. The Pupil Premium Grant (PPG) is additional funding provided by the Government to promote provision for disadvantaged students which gives them equity with their non-disadvantaged peers. The Government believes that Pupil Premium funding should be used to ensure parity of provision for academic progress or enrichment, where opportunities or experiences may be limited in the absence of educational or financial support.
Who is eligible?
The grant is provided for the following groups of students;
• Pupils with an entitlement to free school meals (FSM)
• Pupils who have been entitled to FSM in any of the last 6 years (Ever 6)
• Those pupils in care or adopted from care (LAC)
Additional funding is also available for children of parents serving in the military. This allows the schools to give pastoral support to service children during challenging times and mitigate the negative impact of family mobility or parental deployment.
Who Is Responsible for Effective use of Pupil Premium Grant?
At Pickwick Academy Trust our schools decide how the PPG is spent, as they are best placed to assess what additional provision should be made for the individual pupils within their responsibility.
All staff effectively contribute to the positive progress of our pupil premium pupils through; identifying barriers to achieving potential of our disadvantaged pupils, robust facilitation of high attendance, CPD that highlights use of best practice, highly effective pastoral support and communication systems, including planned communication with parents/carers which is supported through our work with Achievement for All project.
Key to our objective to maximise outcomes is the provision of high-quality teaching, informed by effective monitoring and supported by the use of data, which is scrutinised by staff and leaders at all levels including Executive Headteachers, Trustees and Governors.
In all our schools there is a Pupil Premium lead who champions these pupils with all stakeholders. In order to share strengths and good practice across schools, leaders meet regularly as part of the pupil premium cluster group. This cluster is led by the Directors of Education to drive high quality provision for all our pupil premium pupils.
How do we maximise the use of the Pupil Premium Grant?
At Pickwick Academy Trust we:
• Ensure PPG funding and spending can be identified within the school’s budget.
• Consult the Pupil Premium lead, governors, staff, and parents when prioritising how funds are spent.
• Assess and monitor the individual provisions required for each pupil in receipt of the PPG and adjust provision to maximise impact.
• Use the latest research such as the Education Endowment Fund’s Teaching and Learning toolkit to determine the best use of the funding to ensure maximum impact.
Pupil Premium Strategies
At Pickwick Academy Trust we encourage our schools to operate the following tiered approach to PPG spending to ensure it is both balanced and focussed:
1: Teaching - with a focus on ‘Quality First Teaching’
2: Targeted academic support - such as structured interventions, small group tuition and 1 to 1 support
3: Wider strategies - such as attendance initiatives and behaviour support.
All our schools produce annual Pupil Premium strategies that are published on their websites.
These documents make clear their PPG allocation, a summary of the main barriers to educational achievement faced by eligible pupils, plans on how to spend the pupil premium to address these barriers and the approaches that will be used. Also included in the strategies are plans on how the impact of the spending will be measured.
Monitoring
The impact of the PPG on pupil’s attainment and progress in each school is monitored by the pupil premium link governor and the Director of Education, who in turn report to the full LGC and Trustees as part of the School Improvement Committee.