Background

Pupil Premium is a recent government initiative that targets extra money to enhance the support and opportunities for pupils from disadvantaged or deprived backgrounds who, research shows, underachieve as compared to their peers.

This premium, which specifically targets low-income families (as defined by FSM eligibility) and Looked After Children (LAC), is provided in order to support these pupils in reaching their full potential.

Since April 2011, the ‘Pupil Premium’ has provided targeted school funding for disadvantaged pupils.

The government have used pupils entitled to free school meals as an indicator for deprivation and have deployed a fixed amount of money to schools, per pupil, based on the number of pupils eligible for FSM:

£1455 primay-aged pupils

£2530 for all children who have left local authority care through adoption, a special guardianship order or child arrangements order.

Schools have the freedom to choose the interventions that they consider to be most effective and cost-effective, but are required to publish on-line:

• the school’s pupil premium allocation for the current year.
• details of how we intend to spend the allocation.
• details of how we spent the previous academic year’s allocation.
• how it made a difference to the attainment of these children.