Pupil Premium and Covid/Recovery Funding

Pupil Premium at Brockley Primary School

At Brockley Primary School, we are committed to ensuring all our children make the best possible progress. We track the achievement of every child on a regular basis and do all we can to make sure each child achieves their potential. We also have a duty to ensure that no groups of children are disadvantaged due to their gender, ethnic origin or family income or background.

We are well staffed at Brockley Primary School and children in all year groups learn in classes where the staff team includes a teacher and support staff. Children are familiar with working in groups of different sizes, at different times of the day, with different adults. Children of all abilities have the opportunity to work on a 1:1 basis or in a small group with an adult. Within this type of organisation, we do give children extra support when they need it.

The Pupil Premium funding has allowed us to continue and extend what we already do – to monitor children’s progress and to give additional support or challenge. Children are certainly not singled out or stigmatised for getting some extra attention and we would never label a child in front of other children for receiving free school meals or being in care.

What is the Pupil Premium? The National Picture…

The Pupil Premium was introduced by the Government in April 2011. It was designed to give additional money to support schools in raising the attainment of children who receive free school meals, children whose parents serve in the Armed Forces and those children in local authority care. These groups of children have been identified nationally as achieving at a lower level than children from less disadvantaged backgrounds. For example, national figures show that 11 year olds who are eligible for Free School Meals are around twice as likely not to achieve age related expectations in maths and English as other 11 year olds.

Where does the money come from..?

Pupil Premium is allocated to schools based on the number of children who are currently known to be eligible for Free School Meals, whose parents serve in the Armed Forces and children who have been looked after in local authority care continuously for more than six months.

The purpose of the Pupil Premium is to help schools to provide targeted support for vulnerable children- not necessarily just children who qualify for FSM.

“It is for schools to decide how the Pupil Premium, allocated to schools…. is spent, since they are best placed to assess what additional provision should be made for the individual pupils within their responsibility.” (Source – DfE website)

The funding is therefore given to schools to spend as they think best, although there is a requirement to publish online how this money is spent.

This guidance is an overview of pupil premium for school staff, parents and anyone else interested in the pupil premium.

There’s separate guidance about using pupil premium funding for school leaders.

Purpose

Pupil premium is funding to improve education outcomes for disadvantaged pupils in schools in England. Evidence shows that disadvantaged children generally face additional challenges in reaching their potential at school and often do not perform as well as other pupils.

Pupil eligibility and funding rates 2022 to 2023

This table shows how much pupil premium funding schools and local authorities receive for each eligible child in 2021 to 2022.

Pupil eligibility and funding rates 2022 to 2023

This table shows how much pupil premium funding schools and local authorities will receive for each eligible child in 2022 to 2023.

Eligible schools

The following schools are allocated pupil premium funding based on the number of eligible pupils who attend.

Local authority-maintained schools

This includes:

• mainstream infant, primary, middle, junior, secondary and all-through schools serving children aged 5 to 16
• schools for children with special educational needs or disabilities
• pupil referral units (PRUs), for children who do not go to a mainstream school

Academies, free schools and non-maintained special schools

This includes:

• mainstream academies serving pupils aged 5 to 16
• academies and non-maintained special schools for children with special educational needs or disabilities
• alternative provision (AP) academies, for children who do not go to a mainstream school

Pupil premium funding is also provided to local authorities for eligible pupils in independent special schools, where the local authority pays full tuition fees.

Service pupil premium (SPP)

Service pupil premium is additional funding for schools, but it is not based on disadvantage. It has been combined into pupil premium payments to make it easier for schools to manage their spending.

Schools get £310 in 2021 to 2022 and £320 in 2022 to 2023 for every pupil with a parent who:

• is serving in HM Forces
• has retired on a pension from the Ministry of Defence

This funding is to help with pastoral support.

Use of the pupil premium

Funding paid to schools

School leaders are best placed to assess their pupils’ needs and use the funding to improve attainment, drawing on evidence of effective practice. It is up to school leaders to decide how to spend the pupil premium.

Evidence suggests that pupil premium spending is most effective when schools use a tiered approach, targeting spending across 3 areas, with a particular focus on teaching.

1. Teaching

Investing in high-quality teaching, for example:

• training and professional development for teachers
• recruitment and retention
• support for teachers early in their careers

2. Targeted academic support

Additional support for some pupils focussed on their specific needs, for example:

• one-to-one tuition
• small group tuition
• speech and language therapy

3. Wider approaches

Support for non-academic issues that impact success in school, such as attendance, behaviour and social and emotional challenges. For example:

• school breakfast clubs
• counselling to support emotional health and wellbeing
• help with the cost of educational trips or visits

Read the Education Endowment Foundation’s (EEF) pupil premium guide for information about the tiered approach to spending.

Funding paid to local authorities for looked after children

Virtual School Heads are responsible for managing the funding given to local authorities for the children in their care. They work with schools to ensure the funding is used to help deliver the outcomes identified in the children’s personal education plans.

They can pass all of the funding on to schools or retain some to fund activities that will benefit a group, or all, of the authority’s looked after children.

Further information is available on Virtual School Heads responsibilities for using pupil premium.

Non-eligible pupils

Schools do not have to spend pupil premium so it solely benefits eligible pupils. They can use it wherever they identify the greatest need. For example, they might spend it on pupils who do not get free school meals but:

• have or have had a social worker
• act as a carer

Using pupil premium funding to improve teaching quality is the most effective way to improve outcomes for disadvantaged pupils. By doing so, schools will inevitably benefit non-eligible pupils as well.

Academically able pupils

Pupil premium funding is not allocated based on academic ability. Schools and local authorities will receive funding based on all of the children who are eligible.

Evidence shows that academically able pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds are most at risk of under-performing. These pupils should receive just as much focus as less academically able pupils.

Accountability

Schools must show how they’re using their pupil premium funding:

• by publishing an online statement about how they use their funding and the impact it has on the attainment of disadvantaged pupils
• through inspections by Ofsted
• through published performance tables

Virtual School Heads demonstrate to Ofsted how they’re managing pupil premium for looked-after children in the Virtual School Annual Report.

Further information

For more information, read the:

• guidance for school leaders on using pupil premium funding effectively
• Education Endowment Foundation’s pupil premium guide
• the funding allocations which show the funding given to each school and at national, local authority and parliamentary constituency level

The Covid-19 crisis put an unexpected handbrake on the academic year. While teaching staff, schools and other professionals put in an unprecedented effort to keep educating pupils throughout lockdown, there have been concerns around learning loss as pupils return to the classroom. To help mitigate this, the Prime Minister and Education Secretary announced in June a £1 billion Covid-19 “catch-up” package, designed to tackle the impact of lost teaching time.

What is catch-up tuition funding and how can it be utilised in schools?

The Covid-19 crisis put an unexpected handbrake on the academic year. While teaching staff, schools and other professionals put in an unprecedented effort to keep educating pupils throughout lockdown, there have been concerns around learning loss as pupils return to the classroom. To help mitigate this, the Prime Minister and Education Secretary announced in June a £1 billion Covid-19 “catch-up” package, designed to tackle the impact of lost teaching time.

What is catch-up tuition funding?

As part of the £1bn package, the government has released £650 million to help pupils in England catch-up on learning they have missed while schools were closed. The funding is available from September and will be shared across state primary and secondary schools over the 2020/21 academic year. The government expects this will be spent on small group tuition, but ultimately teachers will be able to decide how the money is spent.

Who is eligible for the catch-up funding?

The £650 million in universal catch-up funding is available to:
• Primary, secondary and all through local authority-maintained schools, academies and free schools
• Local authority-maintained special schools
• Special academies and free schools
• Special schools not maintained by a local authority
• Pupil referral units
• Alternative provision academies and free schools
• Local authority-maintained hospital schools and academies
• Independent special schools

In mainstream schools from reception to year 11, the funding solution is capped at £80 per pupil. In special schools, alternative provision and hospital schools this is £240 per pupil. Payments will be made to schools in three tranches in September, January and May. There is also a 16 to 19 fund for small group tutoring activity in school six forms, colleges and other providers where disadvantaged 16 to 19 students have had their studies disrupted as a result of Covid-19.

How can the catch-up tuition funding streams be used?

Although schools have the flexibility to determine the best way to spend their funding according to their circumstances, they have been instructed to act in line with guidance on curriculum expectations for the 2020/2021 academic year. Schools should look to the Education Endowment Foundation’s support guide for evidence-based approaches to help direct the funding in the most effective way. According to the guide, the best way for children to catch-up quickly is through one-to-one and small group tuition.

School leaders must be able to account for how the funding is being used in line with the goal of getting education back on track as quickly as possible. Note that the grant will only be available for the 2020/2021 academic year and should be used to fund specific activities to support pupils catching up on lost teaching during lockdown.

Please click on this link to find out more about how Brockley is using this funding effectively to ensure children ‘catch up’. This plan is an over view for general publication , a more detailed and child specific plan is available to staff.

Documents and Reports 

April 2018 Changes to EYPP

Please find attached an information leaflet which explains the recent changes to the eligibility for the early education entitlement for two year olds and the Early Years Pupil Premium under Universal Credit. 

To find out how we spend the Pupil Premium Funding click on the link below:

An overview of spending.

Information regarding an external review of Pupil Premium Funding.

External Review of Pupil Premium Funding 2015