Pupil Premium

Pupil Premium Statement/Policy

What is the pupil premium?

Publicly-funded schools in England get extra funding from the government to help them improve the attainment of their disadvantaged pupils.

Evidence shows that children from disadvantaged backgrounds:

• generally face extra challenges in reaching their potential at school
• often do not perform as well as their peers

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

Funding for financial year 2019 to 2020

Who is eligible?

• Ever 6 free school meals: – Schools get £1,320 for every primary age pupil or £935 for every secondary age pupil who claims free school meals or who has claimed free school meals in the last six years.
• Looked-after and previously looked-after children: – Schools get £2,300 for every pupil who has left local authority care through adoption, a special guardianship order or child arrangements order.
• Service families. – The service premium is not part of the pupil premium as the rules to attract the service premium are different.
  • Schools get £300 for every pupil with a parent who:
    • is serving in HM Forces
    • has retired on a pension from the Ministry of Defence
    • This funding is to help with pastoral support.

Non-eligible pupils

Schools can spend their pupil premium on pupils who do not meet the eligibility criteria but need extra support.

• • Schools can use the pupil premium to support other pupils, for example, if they:
    • are in contact with a social worker
    • used to be in contact with a social worker
    • are acting as a carer

Looked after children premium 

• Pupil premium for looked after children is allocated to the local authority responsible for the child 
• Funding is managed by the local authority’s virtual school head who can allocate the premium to the child’s school or use the funding centrally
• Within Peterborough this fund is managed using an electronic application e-PEP. (electronic personal education plan) . Please see our separate policy statement available from the school office. The virtual school head discusses with school how it will manage this funding.

Children adopted from care or who have left care

The pupil premium for 2019 to 2020 will include pupils recorded in the January 2019 school census and alternative provision census who were looked after by an English or Welsh local authority immediately before being adopted, or who left local authority care on a special guardianship order or child arrangements order (previously known as a residence order). These are collectively referred to as post-LAC in these conditions of grant.

How many pupils at Heltwate School are eligible for the Pupil Premium?

Currently 84 children at Heltwate are eligible for the Pupil Premium –  46% of our pupils.

These numbers do change throughout the year. The school includes disadvantaged post 16 students but they do not appear in this number.

Is there an issue with eligible pupils not applying for FSM?

When a Housing/Council Tax Benefit form is completed, this automatically entitles child(ren) in the family to receive free school meals. The Council inform the Student Services Team and the school of the child’s entitlement to free school meals. We receive this information automatically.

Parents in receipt of Child Tax credit are required to complete a free school meal application form and we encourage all parents that receive the credit to apply to ensure that the school receives the Premium payment. Due to the introduction of universal free school meals some parents of year 1 and 2 children do not always realise that they are eligible and do not apply.

How will the School spend the Pupil Premium?

It’s up to school leaders to decide how to spend the pupil premium. Heltwate staff are best placed to assess their pupils’ needs and use funding to improve attainment.

Evidence suggests that pupil premium spending is most effective when schools target spending across the following 3 areas but focus on teaching quality – investing in learning and development for teachers.

• Teaching – Schools arrange training and professional development for all the their staff to improve the impact of teaching and learning for pupils.

• Academic support – Schools should decide on the main issues stopping their pupils from succeeding at school and use the pupil premium to buy extra help.
• Wider approaches – This may include non-academic use of the pupil premium such as:

• school breakfast clubs
• music lessons for disadvantaged pupils
• help with the cost of educational trips or visits
• speech and language therapy

Schools may find using the pupil premium in this way helps to:

• increase pupils’ confidence and resilience
• encourage pupils to be more inspirational
• benefit non-eligible pupils

Heltwate School intends to spend the allocated pupil premium on a range of interventions which can be seen in the Pupil Premium strategy and Impact statements on the website. Some of these are new initiatives and some extend existing activities.

How will the impact of the spending of the Pupil Premium be measured?

At Heltwate School, the usual cycle of data collection and the monitoring and tracking of the cohort’s attainment, will be used to inform student progress and enable the early identification of need, support and appropriate intervention.

We take seriously the performance of all our Students, and “We aim to meet each childs’ individual need”.  We use the Pupil Premium to improve standards across the school, and target the spending power that the Pupil Premium gives.