What is the Pupil Premium?
The Pupil Premium is funding allocated to schools for the specific purpose of boosting the attainment of children from low income families. Funding is allocated to schools to work with pupils who have been registered for free school meals (FSM) at any point in the last 6 years. Schools also receive funding for children who have been looked after continuously for more than 6 months, and children of service personnel.
Why has it been introduced?
The Government believes that the Pupil Premium, which is additional to main school funding, is the best way to address the current underlying inequalities between children eligible for free school meals and their peers, by ensuring that funding reaches the pupils who need it most. Whilst schools are free to spend the pupil premium as they see fit, we are required to publish online information about how we have used the premium.
How do we meet all the needs of all pupils at Crowcombe and Stogumber?
Our intention is that all pupils, irrespective of their background or the challenges they face, make good progress and achieve high attainment across all subject areas. The focus of our pupil premium strategy is to support disadvantaged pupils to achieve that goal, including progress for those who are already high attainers.
When making decisions about using Pupil Premium funding, we have considered research conducted by the EEF (Education Endowment Foundation) and the usefulness of different strategies and their value for money. When we consider the challenges faced by vulnerable pupils (for example those who are looked after / previously looked after, have a social worker and young carers), we need to make decisions that provide the highest possible outcomes whilst providing the highest value for money so we can implement more. The activity we have outlined in this statement is also intended to support all needs, regardless of whether they are disadvantaged or not.
Our aim is for pupils at Crowcombe and Stogumber to make the expected progress in all areas of the curriculum, through quality-first teaching.
Therefore high-quality teaching is at the heart of our approach, with a focus on areas in which disadvantaged pupils require the most support. This is proven to have the greatest impact on closing the disadvantaged attainment gap and concurrently will benefit the non-disadvantaged pupils in our school. Implicit in the intended outcomes detailed below, is the intention that non-disadvantaged pupils’ attainment will be sustained and improved alongside progress for their disadvantaged peers.
EEF research has found that disadvantaged children have been worst affected by partial school closures and the attainment gap has therefore widened. However our approach will not only be responsive to common challenges, but individual needs, rooted in robust diagnostic assessment and not assumptions about the impact of disadvantage. The approaches we have adopted complement each other to help pupils excel. To ensure they are effective we will:
Our school is underpinned by a Christian ethos and therefore we also want to encourage children to feel confident when expressing their own beliefs and to have an awareness of diversity around them. We hope that children will become responsible citizens in their communities and we will enable them to succeed in our ever changing modern world, emboldened with our school values of Generosity, Optimism, Determination, Creativity and Courage.