At High Ham Church of England Primary School, we believe that all our children have an equal entitlement, and should have an equal opportunity to:
- Develop imagination and creativity
- Acquire skills and abilities
- Have a love of learning
The school receives funding from the Government to support it in trying to meet this aspiration. This is known as the Pupil Premium.
Pupil premium is additional funding, from the government, provided to schools for supporting more pupils from low income families to ensure they benefit from the same opportunities as all other children. There are three categories of children that qualify for pupil premium:
- Children who are eligible for free school meals (FSM)
- Looked after children
- Armed forces children
It is for schools to decide how the Pupil premium is spent, since they are best placed to assess what additional provision should be made for the individual pupils for whom they are responsible. The Pupil Premium is allocated to schools with pupils on roll in January 2014 that are known to have been eligible for free school meals (FSM) at any time in the last six years. Each of these pupils will attract £1300. Schools have the freedom to spend the Premium, which is additional to the underlying schools budget, in a way they think will best support the raising of attainment for the most vulnerable pupils.
At High Ham C of E Primary School, a very small proportion of children are eligible for pupil premium.
All our staff and governors accept responsibility for ‘socially disadvantaged’ pupils and are committed to meeting their pastoral, social and academic needs within a caring environment. The targeted and strategic use of pupil premium will support us in achieving our vision.
Principles:
- We seek to ensure that teaching and learning opportunities meet the needs of all of the pupils;
- We seek to 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 in need of intervention and support;
- Pupil premium funding will be allocated following a needs analysis which will identify priority classes, groups or individuals.
Provision:
The range of provision the staff and Governors consider making for this group include:
- Reducing class sizes thus improving opportunities for effective teaching and accelerating progress;
- Providing 1-1 and small group work with an experienced teacher/HLTA focused on overcoming gaps in learning;
- Additional teaching and learning opportunities provided through learning mentors, trained TAs or external agencies;
- The majority of our work through the pupil premium will be aimed at accelerating progress moving children to at least age related expectations. Initially this will be in English and maths;
- In addition, the school recognises that the wider curriculum supports and enriches children’s development in communication, English and maths, and therefore funding will also be allocated to enable children to participate fully and actively in wider and extra-curricular activities;
- Pupil premium resources may also be used to target able children on Free School Meals to achieve a secure understanding of the age related curriculum for their year group.
Reporting:
- It will be the responsibility of the Headteacher, or a delegated member of staff, to report to the Governors on:
- the progress made towards narrowing the gap, for socially disadvantaged pupils;
- an outline of the provision that was made since the last meeting;
- an evaluation of the cost effectiveness and impact of the provision in terms of the progress made by the pupils receiving a particular provision.
- Parents will receive information as to the progress of pupils through termly parent meetings and target plans as well as in the final end of year report.
- The Governors of the school will ensure that there is an annual statement to parents on how the Pupil Premium funding has been used to address the issue of ‘narrowing the gap’, for socially disadvantaged pupils. This task will be carried out within the requirements published by the Department for Education and will appear on our school website and will be updated annually.
Monitoring:
As a school we are committed to providing the best education for all our pupils and will develop the process of how we use PP funding over the years once we can evaluate what has had the most impact on children’s learning. There will be annual reports published and this policy will be reviewed each year.