The Pupil Premium is additional funding given to publicly-funded schools in England to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils and close the gap between them and their peers.

Who is eligible for Pupil Premium?

Pupil Premium funding is paid to schools according to the number of pupils who have been:

• registered as eligible for free school meals at any point in the last 6 years.
• recently in care.
• classed as service children (with a parent in the armed forces) at any point in the last 3 years.

We only receive the Pupil Premium funding if children are registered as meeting at least one of the criteria above.Therefore, we strongly urge all parents to check their eligibility for free school meals, particularly if there is a change in personal circumstances. For example, receipt of certain tax credits could make your child eligible, though there are many other ways to qualify. 

As well as the free school meals, your child's school (primary or secondary) will receive a set amount for at least the next 6 years to support their learning.

Why is the Pupil Premium so important?

The Pupil Premium will be spent in such a way as to directly improve the attainment and life chances and experiences of qualifying children. Our aim is to build capacity within the family home so that all parents are better equipped to support their child in secondary school. 

 
Children from relatively disadvantaged backgrounds are far less likely to get good GCSE results. The DfE published in February 2020 that in 2019 over 66% of non-disadvantaged children achieved a grade 4 or higher in Mathematics and English compared to 36% of those eligible for free school meals.  Just 456 of the 143,000 pupils classed as disadvantaged by the DfE achieved the top grade 9s in English and Maths last summer, compared with 6,132 out of 398,000 other pupils. 

We believe it is unacceptable for children’s success to be determined by their social circumstances. We intend to raise levels of achievement for all disadvantaged pupils and to close the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers.

How is the Pupil Premium spent?

Our Pupil Premium allocation for 2022-2023 was £140,130.

Our Pupil Premium allocation for 2023-24 is £135,650

How does the Pupil Premium benefit children at Caedmon?

Some of the grant is allocated to increasing the number of staff available to support children, both with their learning and in providing additional services to families (such as Caedmon's free Breakfast Club).

Having extra staff in school also allows us to provide additional academic support - both in lessons and through booster sessions - to improve children's attainment. This is documented in the individual spend plans for each pupil premium child. 

How exactly might the Pupil Premium benefit my child?

Increased staffing has been show to have a positive impact on children's learning but the Pupil Premium grant allows us to do so much more for those children who qualify.

The table above does a good job of providing a simple overview yet it cannot possibly reflect the broad range of (usually highly-personalised) needs of Pupil Premium children.

We aim to consider the needs of the individual, particularly where there is additional funding available to help overcome any barriers to learning. Senior leaders within school allocate funding to try to anticipate potential costs over the year. Based on this, staff who are familiar with the specific children work together (supported through consultation with parents) to consider how best to help them. This is done by:

• identifying any barriers to learning.
• establishing what we want the children to achieve.
• suggesting specific actions linked to the above (and the specific cost).
• monitoring the impact of this each term based on available evidence.

We are trying to develop a more personalised system as we spend the allocated funding. As part of this, input from parents is incredibly useful. Please do not be afraid to ask about how Pupil Premium works for your child and we are always open to suggestions and feedback.

Can you give me a specific example?

Residential visits (off-site with at least one overnight stay) are already partly subsidised from the main school budget, with the remaining balance to be paid by parents/carers. The Pupil Premium grant means that there will be a further reduced charge for qualifying children for these visits. 

There is also a small discretionary fund (£300 per child) that may be used by teaching staff to buy specific resources to encourage a pupil premium child's learning outside of school. To give an idea of what this may cover, in the recent past this has included buying reading books by a favourite author and the availability of a complimentary National Trust family pass.

Again, we strongly urge you to check to see if your child is eligible.

How do you know that Pupil Premium is making a difference at Caedmon?

The progress and development of Pupil Premium children is highlighted within lesson observations by senior leaders and regularly considered by both staff and governors when looking at groups of learners within our school.

As well as annual planning and termly reviews, we carry out a case study for one qualifying Pupil Premium child in each year group. This goes into further detail about the child's background and barriers to learning, the desired outcomes, how the actions were chosen and the impact it had on the child.

To ensure confidentiality, we can't publish specific examples on our website. However, the documents below should give an idea of what this looks like. Please note, the details within are not specifically based on any children in our school and are entirely fictional.