What is the Pupil Premium?

The Pupil Premium is additional funding given to publicly funded schools in England. The purpose of the funding is to raise the attainment and accelerate the progress of disadvantaged pupils and close the gap between them and their peers.

Pupil Premium funding is allocated to children from families who are currently known to be eligible for free school meals (FSM). It is also allocated to children who are looked after (LAC), children who have previously been looked after or children who have left local authority care on a special guardianship order or child arrangements order. A premium is also provided for children whose parents are serving in the armed forces. Pupil Premium funding has been extended to include funding for children who have been eligible for free school meals (FSM) or for children whose parents were serving in the armed forces  at any point in the last 6 years (Ever 6).

Principles

At Archbishop Cranmer, we organise teaching and learning in order to best meet the needs of all our children.
We arrange appropriate provision for children from vulnerable groups and for those who may be socially disadvantaged, to ensure that their needs are accurately assessed and met. We aim to support children and families with the social, emotional and behavioural aspects of learning, and to overcome identified barriers to educational achievement such as gaps in non-negotiables and poor retention of curriculum knowledge and skills.

Main Barriers to Educational Achievement at Archbishop Cranmer

• Poor retention of curriculum knowledge and skills
• Gaps in knowledge including non-negotiables
• Poor attendance
• Siblings with SEND or complex needs
• Recently separated families
• Reduced home support
• Limited opportunities to read outside of school with an adult
• Pupil self-esteem and self-confidence

Provision

At Archbishop Cranmer CE Academy the PPG has been used to fund a range of interventions, resources and initiatives:

• Quality First Teaching
• Early morning ‘Fun Fit Club’ and additional ‘Mini Fun Fit Club’ taster sessions afterschool
• Music Tuition
• Literacy Volunteers
• Full or part payments towards residential trips
• Educational Visits
• Before and After-School Clubs and Extra Curricular Opportunities
• Booster sessions
• Swimming Lessons
• Increased Teaching Partner Support to work with small groups, 1:1 and reduce class size
• Targeted Small Group Support
• Emotional Wellbeing Support

The impact of this is measured through pupil progress meetings, questionnaire feedback, progress and attainment monitoring and end of Key Stage results.  Alongside this, we monitor pupil’s individual provision and impact using individual pupil trackers and whole school tracking documents to measure the impact of spending.

Free School Meals and the Pupil Premium 

Parents can check eligibility for free school meals through Nottinghamshire County Council's website - https://www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/education/school-meals/free-school-meals-and-milk and, if eligible, also gain welcome additional funding for their child’s school, known as ‘Pupil Premium’. If eligible, you are not obliged to accept the free school meals for your child if you wish to make other arrangements, but we do want to encourage applications as the additional funding gained would still benefit education provision at the school.

What the service does for parents

After entering essential details into the website, the online application process links to the Department for Education system for checking eligibility and gives an immediate ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response, and will notify the school.

This system is being provided to encourage parents to apply and take advantage of free school meals while at the same time increasing the benefit to schools from Pupil Premium funding, a substantial amount of which does not reach schools because not all parents who are eligible apply for free meals for their child.

What the service does for schools

As the government has introduced free school meals for all children in Key Stage 1, it is more important than ever for schools to know the number of pupils for whom they can claim Pupil Premium funding. These funds enable schools to take on additional staff and invest in additional equipment, resources and activities to the benefit all children.

Service Pupil Premium

Pupils attract SPP if they meet one of the following criteria:

• one of their parents is serving in the regular armed forces (including pupils with a parent who is on full commitment as part of the full time reserve)
• they have been registered as a ‘service child’ on the January school census at any point since 2015, see footnote ¹
• one of their parents died whilst serving in the armed forces and the pupil receives a pension under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme or the War Pensions Scheme.

Children have to be flagged as service children ahead of the January school census deadline. Service parents need to make the school aware of their status by talking to the head teacher or school admin staff.

This is offered to provide mainly pastoral support during challenging times and to help mitigate the negative impact on service children of family mobility or parental deployment.