Pupil Premium is additional funding received by schools for each pupil from disadvantaged families or background.

It is allocated to schools based on the number of children who come from low-income families.

This is defined as those who are currently known to be eligible for free school meals. It is important to know that a pupil does not need to have a school dinner, but the parents/carers must have applied and be entitled if they want one.

It also includes:
– Pupils who have been eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years (Ever 6)

– Children who have been looked after continuously for more than six months.

First introduced in April 2011, the level of the premium in 2011 – 12 was £488 per pupil; it has increased to over the past years and now stands at £1320. This money is for schools to decide how to use but should be spent in order to improve educational attainment of the children from less privileged backgrounds. This is one of the current coalition government’s key educational policies. It’s based findings that show that, as a group, children who have been eligible for free school meals at any point in time have consistently lower educational attainment than those who have never been eligible for free school meals.

Find out more about whether your child might be eligible. Even if you choose not to have school dinner, the pupil premium will benefit the pupil and the school.

Aims

At St Helena’s we aim to provide the highest standard of teaching and learning, pastoral care and broad cross-curricular and extra-curricular experience, in a secure, caring, stimulating and happy environment, where each pupil’s educational, social, moral and cultural needs are met to enable them to gain a sense of independence and begin to develop in confidence and self-esteem into their best selves.

Initiatives previously implemented and improvements

• Developments in identifying, assessing and monitoring attainment and progress
• Varied approaches to developing non-academic needs of pupils
• Implementation of the new curriculum across school – developments tracked for pupils who have been on the new curriculum
• New interventions in phonics, reading and maths
• Inclusion and pastoral manager employed to support the needs of specific pupils
• Learning assistants have been deployed more effectively to focus specific skills to raise attainment of pupils

Barriers to future attainment

• COVID pandemic resulting in school closure and lost learning across the board but particularly affecting disadvantaged pupils. Curriculum catchup requirements and pupils’ mental wellbeing may slow down attainment.
• Deprivation of language and vocabulary development on entry into the Foundation Stage – this impacts on daily activities across school and their life experiences.
• Children have a lack of life experiences outside of school which contributes to minimal cultural capital – this impacts on pupils ability to draw on life experiences when learning about the outside world and generating their own ideas to be an independent learner.
• High amount of children who have low self-esteem and self-confidence – this impacts on children’s resilience on daily activities within the classroom.
• Ensuring all children start the day with a healthy breakfast and a positive start to the morning – this impacts on children being able to focus on their learning.
• Small group of children who display challenging behaviour (mostly PP eligible) having a detrimental effect on their academic progress and that of their peers.

Click on the PDF below for more information about Catch-Up Funding at St Helena’s.

NB: Due to the small number of children in receipt of Pupil Premium in our school, they could be easily identified and so our Pupil Premium information will not be published here but is available on request.

 

Pupil Premium Report

[pdf 211KB]