Pupil Premium
If you are in receipt of certain benefits, your child could also qualify for free school meals and the Pupil Premium during all school years. To qualify you must be receiving:
- Universal Credit, provided you have an annual net earned income of no more than £7,400, as assessed by earnings from up to three of your most recent assessment periods (£616.67 per month)
- Income Support
- Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
- Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
- Support under part six of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
- The guarantee element of Pension Credit
- Child Tax Credit, provided you are also not entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual household gross income that does not exceed £16,190 (as assessed by HMRC)
- Working Tax Credit run-on, paid for four weeks after you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit
Please note that contributions-based benefits, including contribution-related Jobseekers’ Allowance do not entitle you to claim free school meals.
You will receive an instant decision on whether your application is successful. If it is, we will fully process the application in 5 working days and notify the school. Once the school has received this your child can begin enjoying free school meals. You should continue to pay until confirmation comes through. Schools may be able to arrange reimbursement of payment made while your entitlement is being confirmed.
Free school meals claims cannot be backdated. They are awarded from the date we receive the application, once eligibility is confirmed. This is because there is a legal requirement for a request to be made, before a free school meal can be provided. If you are not entitled to free school meals, you will be notified in writing.
Our Vision and Strategy for the Pupil Premium
Since 2012 , there has been a requirement for schools to report on their use of the Pupil Premium. This is a sum of money allocated per pupil who: is Looked After (foster care), has been previously adopted from care, is in a forces family or has been eligible for Free School Meals within the last 6 years (‘Ever 6’).
You can read our planned expenditure to support Pupil Premium children here: Pupil Premium Strategy 2023
Our Vision
Achievement for ALL children:
- We have high expectations for all pupils
- We ensure that teaching and learning opportunities meet the needs of all pupils.
- We ensure that appropriate provision is made for pupils who belong to vulnerable groups, this includes ensuring that the needs of disadvantaged pupils are adequately assessed and addressed.
We aim high, we find out what can every child achieve and how we can enable that.
Our Strategy
- We make sure our provision is right for all pupils. We track this carefully.
- We make sure that we identify any children that are underperforming quickly and that we know how to address this.
- We have a Pupil Premium Champion who works across both schools in the federation, as well as an allocated governor who oversees this work.
- We make sure that any interventions we run are found to be successful through research based evidence.
- We track the progress and attainment for all our pupils carefully through data , progress meetings, talking to staff, children and parents.
- We make sure all our partners understand our strategy-we talk to our Governors, staff, children and parents and check we are understanding all children’s needs in a variety of ways.
- We share our information with all stake holders.
- We make sure our spending is tracked and that our actions provide value for money.
- We make sure all staff know how to track and use information about their children to support their planning and provide the best learning opportunities for all.
- We make sure our curriculum is creative and flexible and children have some ownership of their learning.
- We work with other schools in our TSA and MAT to make sure we know about best practice and the most effective strategies.
- We review our practice and adapt and refine our strategy to constantly strive for achievement for all children.
- We keep up to date by attending network meetings and reading research.
- We value all staff and their roles at our school and we provide training for interventions and focus support for all.
We ask the staff, children and parents about our children and what would make the difference to their learning, as well as using our assessments and data analysis to ensure we have the right provision for maximising progress for all children. We research the most successful strategies to enable our children to narrow their gaps (using the Sutton Trust EEF toolkit amongst others) and we make provision for accelerating progress.