Pupil Premium

Pupil Premium at The Shade Primary School

Information for parents and carers

What is it?

The Pupil Premium is government funding designed to help disadvantaged children and young people do well at school. The funding is allocated to schools for children Reception to Year 11 who have registered for free school meals in the last six years, are Looked-After children or have parents in the Armed Forces.

In addition to this, schools receive funding for each eligible child registered

if they have been looked after for 1 day or more
were adopted from care on or after 30 December 2005, or left care under a special guardianship order or a residence order

How much Pupil Premium money does our school receive?

Our Pupil Premium funding for April 2018 to March 2019 is £19,800.

Overcoming Barriers

The money is spent on accelerating learning and intervening rapidly following the process below:

Firstly we identify any barriers that child may have to learning.
Then we consider the desired outcome that we would hope for that child and the steps to achieve that.
We then select an appropriate strategy to help us put those steps into place.
Staff are trained in the strategy selected.
Pupils are then monitored frequently.
Finally we evaluate the strategy and reflect on how successful it has been and how much progress the child has made, as a result.

How is it spent?

After much research, we have decided to focus our Pupil Premium funding on:

A Learning Mentor to provide good quality feedback about learning, during one-to-one directed time with the pupils. A personalised approach to the mentoring takes place as the mentor tackles individual barriers to learning.
Phonics and Spelling
Building skills for learning and developing attitudes to learning

We will also be talking to pupils, parents and carers of children receiving the funding, to ask for their ideas on what will most help. Some children will already be doing well in Literacy, Numeracy or other subjects but there may be things we can do to stretch them further, to help them aim high, or to build their confidence – like having a Teacher or Teaching Assistant for certain activities to develop their skills further or purchase individual resources.

Some families may need financial help so that they can take part in trips and activities of a cultural and /or academic nature. If children are behind in English, Maths or other subjects, we may arrange for them to have special small group or one-to-one teaching. We call these ‘intervention programmes’. We choose the classroom approaches and intervention programmes that are known to have a positive impact on learning and development.

We may spend some of the money on training for staff to make sure they are up-to-date with the latest knowledge about what works for disadvantaged children/young people.

How much parents and carers get involved with their child’s learning makes a huge difference to how well they do at school. So we may also spend money on activities that help keep you informed about their targets, and confident in knowing how to support their learning and development.

How will parents know it is working?

We track all children’s progress each term, so we can quickly see if plans are working. If your child takes part in an intervention programme, we will also measure how they are doing at the start of the programme, and the end, so we can see the difference.

We will report to you at parents’ evenings, held in the Autumn and Spring Terms and in writing in the Summer Term but if you would like information on your child’s progress at any time, please get in touch with the Class Teacher.

Where can I get more information?

For more information about how we plan provision and track progress please speak to Mrs Segust.

How do I know if we are eligible?

As Key Stage One children already receive a free school meal, it is more difficult to know if you are entitled to the Pupil Premium funding. Please see the following website for help: https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/residents/children-and-families/schools-&-learning/help-with-school-&-learning-costs/pupil-premium/

You may also arrange to speak to Mrs Whitwell, in the school office, Mrs Segust, if you need further information or support. This discussion can be made in confidence - we will be pleased to help.