Pupil Premium
Our school has a duty to ensure that all pupils are given the best possible chance of achieving their full potential. The Pupil Premium is additional funding given to schools so that they can support disadvantaged students and close the attainment gap between them and their peers.
Pupil Premium is a fund provided by the Department for Education to enhance the education of students who are deemed to be from a disadvantaged background. It is provided for those students currently in receipt of Free School Meals (FSM) or have been, at any point over the past 6 years (FSM6). Looked After Children (CLA) and Children with Parents in the Armed Forces are also eligible to Pupil Premium Funding.
We use the Pupil Premium to fund three whole school activity types:
- Raising achievement
- Enrichment
- Supporting achievement
We take a particularly proactive approach to ensuring that we do all that we can to lead of disadvantaged pupils to a position of advantage. Central to the mission of the school is to ensure that we play a significant role in removing the stubborn link between poverty and academic under-performance. Consequently, our pupils and our professionals are in the vanguard of the national drive which seeks to prove that where teaching is excellent, leadership inspiring and behaviour standards exemplary all children excel regardless of background.
The main barriers to educational achievement faced by eligible pupils at our school are:
- Social and emotional difficulties, requiring mentor and peer support, nurture and family support and counselling.
- Low starting point and a readiness to learning with ‘behaviour for learning’ in school, requiring additional adult support and intervention.
- Language – access to books, ebooks and audiobooks, due to a large number of children joining school with very limited knowledge and understanding of the English Language.
- Lack of opportunities and access to extra-curricular activities – educational experiences such as trips, music lessons and participation in physical activities
- Parental engagement with school – ensuring more parents engage with the school, including parent workshop events, reading mornings, school coffee mornings, parents’ evenings and recently established PTA
At St. Francis of Assisi, funds have been allocated as follows:
- Additional support staff – all classes now have at least one full time teaching assistant and some of our classes have more, where particular children need additional help and support. This is the main use of funding.
- Increase in specialist, experienced support, such as an experienced teaching assistant to support those children needing more focused help learning English and behaviour support 1:1 where required.
- Purchase of additional resources to ensure practical, hands on equipment to promote learning.
- Support for enrichment activities such as visits out of school and visitors into school.
A more detailed breakdown of how this additional funding is used and the impact of the expenditure can be found in the Pupil Premium Report (above), available and updated annually. The next review of the Pupil Premium strategy is September 2023.
Although this additional funding is available for children who have free school meals, parents should be reassured that we always aim to meet the needs of all children and those needing additional support who may not be receiving this entitlement, will get the support they need.
The Pupil Premium allocation is calculated on the following numbers:
– number of pupils eligible for the Service Child PP (children of service personnel)
– number of Looked After Children
– number of children eligible for Free School Meals (within a 6 year period)
Helping Us! If you feel your child/children may be entitled to Free School Meals (FSM) , please speak to the school office who will be able to advise you. If you are entitled, not only will your child/ren get a free, healthy meal each day, s/he will be entitled to free school milk and will also bring additional funding into school.
Please note:
The PP Statement of Intent is reviewed annually, in September.
The PP Report is reviewed annually, in July.
Pupil Premium Report 2019 – 2020
Pupil Premium Report 2018 – 2019