What is Pupil Premium? 

Pupil Premium was introduced by the Department for Education (DfE) in 2011, as additional funding for pupils who receive Free School Meals or are Looked After Children. This is because the DfE have recognised that good education is the key to improving young people’s life chances. This is particularly true for children from low-income families, or are Looked After Children, research shows that without intervention these children are far less likely to leave schools with good GCSE results than other children. Pupil Premium, using additional resources from outside the School’s Budget, is intended to address the current inequalities by ensuring that funding reaches the pupils who need it most. 

Pupil Premium has also been introduced for children whose parents are currently serving in the armed forces. This service premium is designed to address the emotional and social well-being of these pupils. 

The DfE have stated that schools have the right to spend this funding as they see fit based upon their knowledge of pupil needs.  There is obvious accountability that serves to ensure that the money is used effectively and to the benefit of these key groups. 

Schools, headteachers and teachers will decide how to use the Pupil Premium allocation, as they are best placed to assess what additional provision should be made for individual pupils. Source – DfE website 

Our Strategy 

As children join Nursery with very low starting points a significant amount of funding is spent in EYFS and KS1 to ensure we diminish differences to age related expectations as soon as possible. 

The personal development, behaviour and welfare of our pupils remains a priority to ensure children are ready to learn and have the strategies and support to overcome barriers. 

As children move through school the pupil premium funding is focused on continuing to diminish differences with National particularly for the most able disadvantaged pupils and other focus groups. 

At Simpson’s Lane our pastoral care and rigorous monitoring and tracking of all pupils helps us to identify any pupils who are at risk of not making sufficient progress and have helped us to plan and implement good intervention strategies.