Pupil Premium Funding

Introduced in 2011, the pupil premium is a sum of money given to schools each year by the Government to improve the attainment of disadvantaged children.

This is based on research showing that children from low income families perform less well at school than their peers. Often, children who are entitled to pupil premium face challenges such as poor language and communication skills, less family support, lack of confidence and issues with attendance and punctuality. The pupil premium is intended to directly benefit the children who are eligible, helping to narrow the gap between them and their classmates your child eligible?

Schools are given a pupil premium for:

• Children who have qualified for free school meals at any point in the past six years. The school receives £1300 for each of these children.
• Children who have been looked after under local authority care for more than one day. These children are awarded a premium of £1900.
• Children of armed forces personnel

Schools can choose how to spend their pupil premium money, as they are best placed to identify what would be of most benefit to the children who are eligible. 

Often, all of the children in a class will reap some benefit from how the school spends its pupil premium: for example, if the money is used to fund an additional teaching assistant who works across the whole class, rather than providing one-to-one support. But research shows that the fund does help to narrow gaps between disadvantaged children and their peers, particularly in English and maths.

There is no obligation for your school to consult you about how they use the money they claim for your child.  However, schools do have to show that they are using their pupil premium fund appropriately. You can see in our Pupil Premium strategy:  How we spent money in previous years and the impact it has had.  You are also able to see our strategy for the coming year below.

Your child may be eligible for free school meals – and accordingly pupil premium – if you receive any of the following benefits:

• Income support
• Income-based jobseekers’ allowance
• Income-related employment and support allowance
• Support under Part IV of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• The guaranteed element of state pension credit
• Child tax credit, provided that you are not also entitled to working tax credit and have an annual gross income of £16,190 or less
• Universal credit

From September 2014, all children in Reception and Years 1 and 2 will qualify for free school meals, regardless of their family income, but only the children who would have qualified for free meals under the above income-based criteria will receive the pupil premium.

If your child qualifies for free school meals, it’s important that you tell us.