Reporting to parents and carers

The Government believes that the Pupil Premium, which is additional to main school funding, is the best way to address the current underlying inequalities between children eligible for free school meals (FSM) and their peers by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the pupils who need it most.

Schools are free to spend the Pupil Premium as they see fit. However they will be held accountable for how they have used the additional funding to support pupils from low-income families.

Principles

• We ensure that teaching and learning opportunities meet the needs of all of the pupils
• We ensure that appropriate provision is made for pupils who belong to vulnerable groups, this includes ensuring that the needs of socially disadvantaged pupils are adequately assessed and addressed.
• In making provision for socially disadvantaged pupils, we recognise that not all pupils who receive free school meals will be socially disadvantaged.
• We also recognise that not all pupils who are socially disadvantaged are registered or qualify for free school meals.
• We reserve the right to allocate the Pupil Premium funding to support any pupil or groups of pupils the school has legitimately identified as being socially disadvantaged.
• Pupil premium funding will be allocated following a needs analysis which will identify priority classes, groups or individuals. An increasing percentage of our Pupil Premium funded children have been identified as ‘vulnerable’ due to social, emotional and domestic circumstances, Special Educational Needs, pastoral or behavioural difficulties and additional languages. Many of our children have several of these barriers affecting their learning and ability to access the curriculum. Limited funding and resources means that not all children receiving free school meals will be in receipt of pupil premium interventions at one time.