Pupil Premium
This grant is an amount of money allocated to schools based on the number of the 'most disadvantaged' children a school has. Schools are free to spend the Pupil Premium Grant as they feel is appropriate. Schools must report and publicise annually how the money has been spent and what the impact has been made on the achievements of the pupils. The government believes that the Pupil Premium Grant, which is additional to the main school funding, is the best way to address the inequalities between children eligible for free school meals (FSM), looked after children & service children and other pupils. Pupils for who schools must spend the grant on are the 'most disadvantaged'. This is a government definition; it includes children who have may have been disadvantaged at any point in their life and includes children who:
- have had free school meals, due to low income at any point in the school life
- are 'looked after' by the local authority
- adopted from care
- are children of Service families
Suggestions for how the grant is used:
Teaching
- Schools arrange training and professional development for all their staff to improve the impact of teaching and learning for pupils.
Academic support
Schools should decide on the main issues stopping their pupils from succeeding at school and use the pupil premium to buy extra help.
Wider approaches
This may include non-academic use of the pupil premium such as:
- school breakfast clubs
- music lessons for disadvantaged pupils
- help with the cost of educational trips or visits
- speech and language therapy
Schools may find using the pupil premium in this way helps to:
- increase pupils’ confidence and resilience
- raise pupil aspiration
- benefit non-eligible pupils Accountability
Schools must be transparent about how they spend your pupil premium so:
- parents, guardians can understand the pupil premium strategy, this is done through the annual strategy document and 'impact statement'
- governing bodies can see evidence-based practice so they can consider the rationale behind all pupil premium-related decisions
Pupil Premium Strategy statement 2024-2025 with review of 2023-2024 spend
At Merton Bank Primary School, we ensure that Pupil Premium funding is used effectively to support disadvantaged students, emphasising the importance of evidence-informed decisions and adapting to the unique needs of our school’s community. We use the EEF (Education Endowment Foundation) model which consists of 3 areas:
1. Developing high quality teaching: this is a top priority for Pupil Premium spending. It includes professional development to ensure that every teacher is supported to keep improving.
2. Targeted academic support: We identify the challenges that our disadvantaged pupils face by using a wide range of internal data and information to diagnose the need.
3. Wider strategies: These wider strategies enable us to identify non-academic barriers to outcomes such as attendance and behaviour, and then direct the best support we can.
The document below shows how we have used pupil premium funding, within a 3 tiered approach, for the academic year 2024/2025.
