Pupil premium is additional funding received by schools for each pupil from disadvantaged families or background. It’s allocated to schools based on the number of children who come from low-income families – this is defined as those who are currently known to be eligible for free school meals (FSM). It’s based on findings that show that, as a group, children who have been eligible for free school meals at any point in time have consistently lower educational attainment than those who have never been eligible. Schools can use the money to support other pupils with identified needs.

It’s important to know that a pupil does not need to have a school dinner, but the parents / carers should check to see if they are entitled.

It also includes pupils who have been eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years; children who have been looked after continuously for more than six months; and children where a parent serves in the armed forces.

At around £1,000 per eligible pupil, this money is for schools to decide how to use in order to improve educational attainment of children from less privileged backgrounds.

Our Pupil Premium Strategies show how we use the pupil premium funding:

• • 2024-25 Pupil Premium Strategy
  • 2023-24 Pupil Premium Strategy and Covid Recovery Strategy
  • 2022-23 Pupil Premium Strategy and Covid Recovery Strategy

A large proportion of our funding is spent on additional classroom support.  Staff are aware of which children are eligible for the pupil premium and provide additional, frequent targeted support for these pupils.  Teachers are required to produce timetables detailing different support activities: what the learning objective is, when the support will happen, who will lead the support (either the teacher or the teaching assistant) and who will benefit from the support.  Children with pupil premium must be part of this.

At St James’ CE Primary, we know that all children are different and have different needs. Therefore, if we feel that a child would benefit in a different way, we will invest pupil premium and support that child in a different way.

Covid recovery catch-up premium

Following the coronavirus pandemic, there was a national programme of funding to support children and young people to catch up. This included a one-off universal £650 million catch-up premium for the 2020 to 2021 academic year to help all pupils make up for lost teaching time. Schools’ allocations were calculated on a per pupil basis: £80 for each pupil from Reception (Foundation 2) to Year 6.