Pupil Premium
‘The school offers well-judged support for disadvantaged pupils, such as those in receipt of pupil premium funding and this ensures consistently good achievements.' Ofsted 2013
What is Pupil Premium?
In April 2011, the government introduced the Pupil Premium and the Service Premium. These gave schools additional funding to diminish any gaps in attainment for disadvantaged pupils and children in care, as well as to assist the pastoral needs of children with parents in the armed forces.
The Pupil Premium is closely monitored to ensure the spending is effective and has a positive impact on the pupils within our school- schools are accountable for the impact of the money spent.
Schools must show how they use their Pupil Premium funding by;
- publishing an online statement showing how funds will be used and the impact for disadvantaged pupils
- through Ofsted inspections
- through published performance tables
Research shows that children from disadvantaged backgrounds are far less likely to get good GCSE results. At Our Lady of Lourdes, we believe in ensuing pupils receive support based on the support each individual pupil needs. These needs will vary throughout their educational journey. It is unacceptable for children’s successes to be determined by their social circumstances, and our intent is to raise levels of achievement for all disadvantaged pupils and to close the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers.
Intent Statement
At Our Lady of Lourdes, it is our intention that all pupils make good progress throughout their social, emotional and academic journey- irrespective of their social circumstances. We ensure that all pupils are appropriately challenged and supported whilst on this learning path. With support from the inclusion team and regular training, staff are trained to intervene to support identified needs. It is our belief that a whole school approach is adopted, which sees staff take responsibility for disadvantaged pupils’ outcomes and raise expectations so they can reach their learning potential.
When deciding how to best use the Pupil Premium, we have used the Education Endowment Foundation’s Teaching and Learning Toolkit which provides evidence on how schools can spend money more effectively to improve the teaching and learning of children from low-income families. Please see the link below for further information:
https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/resources/teaching-learning-toolkit
Our main strategy to support children in receipt of the Pupil Premium is through providing the highest standard of Quality First Teaching. We ensure that the funding is used to support all disadvantaged children, regardless of ability, to achieve the highest levels of attainment. Families may not necessarily be in receipt of pupil Premium but many of our children are affected by the barriers of child poverty evidenced in the South Gloucestershire Child Poverty Needs Assessment. Please see the link below for further information:
Current approaches
Although Ofsted recommend successful approaches, at Our Lady of Lourdes the money is spent in a variety of ways to raise the learning and expectations of pupils’ learning- this includes;
- Resources and training to close the gap between Pupil Premium and Non-Pupil Premium in Reading, Writing and Maths
- Language rich environment initiative to improve the communication skills of our pupils to ensure they can communicate appropriately and effectively
- Support from our inclusion team in order to improve the mental well-being of children returning to school after Covid restrictions
- To implement specific interventions to support higher rates of progress across the school in Reading, Writing and Maths
Barriers to learning include:
- Attainment by pupils eligible for PP not in line with non-PP pupils at the end of KS1 and KS2 in Reading, Writing and Maths including higher achieving pupils.
- Some pupils’ speech and language skills may be under developed on entry to primary school and this limits progress in communication, language and literacy throughout.
- Many pupils eligible for PP also have SEND needs to consider when planning for their provision.
Some of our PP children are experiencing difficulties in their home lives and find emotional regulation difficult; this can result in negative attitudes towards their learning and affects their wellbeing and progress (SEMH).
Please see below a detail breakdown of our previous Pupil Premium spend, together with a review of our 2022 to 2025 strategy and its impact.
Does your child qualify for the Pupil Premium? If your child qualifies for free school meals or you are in the armed forces, the school will, in return, receive additional funding to support them. Please follow the link below to see if you meet the criteria:
https://find-information-for-adults-children-families.southglos.gov.uk/kb5/southglos/directory/advice.page?id=yp4evwg7Duw