Pupil Premium

How is it used at St Mary’s?

The Pupil Premium is allocated to children from low-income families who are currently known to be eligible for free school meals (FSM) in both mainstream and non-mainstream settings or have been eligible at any point during their time in the school.

It is also applicable to children who have been looked after continuously for more than six months or were in care prior to adoption. There is also a Service Pupil Premium provided for children from armed forces families.

The funding is designed to counter the disadvantage that these children may have in their education because of the circumstances that they and their families find themselves in.

The government has targeted this money at these disadvantaged children to allow them to achieve their full potential and to give them an equal chance to succeed.

Allocation of Grant:

The Pupil Premium Grant Allocation for St Mary’s in 2019/2020 is estimated to be £17,120 as at 31/03/19, this figure may be subject to change, for example, if additional children become eligible to attract pupil premium funding to the school. 

The main barriers to achievement to educational achievement faced by eligible pupils at school include: 

  • in some cases, there is a gap in attainment between disadvantaged pupils and their peers early on in their education.
  • in some cases, disadvantaged pupils have additional or special educational needs. 
  • in some cases, disadvantaged pupils have worries or concerns, which may get in the way of their learning or might impact on their behaviour.
  • in some cases, financial pressures may limit pupil participation in school activities e.g. trips.
  • in some cases, family or financial pressures impact on a pupil's punctuality and attendance

These barriers are not exclusive to disadvantaged pupils eligible for the pupil premium funding and other pupils in school will benefit from measures taken to overcome them. 

In order to overcome these barriers, the governors of the school targeted this funding to:

  • Provide one to one tuition or small group tuition by a teacher to enable disadvantaged pupils to narrow gaps in achievement with their peers.
  • Provide pupil counselling opportunities with a fully qualified pupil counsellor to support wellbeing of identified disadvantaged children. 
  • Provide additional teaching assistant (TA) support to deliver personalised teaching programmes.  For example, teachers and teaching assistants will deliver small phonics and spelling groups and small mathematics and English intervention groups - this allows pupils to receive phonics lessons in smaller, more personalised and more effective groupings. 
  • Additional TA to support disadvantaged children with additional learning needs in class, to enable pupils those pupils to narrow gaps in achievement with their peers.
  • Provide additional staffing and activities at lunchtimes to support pupils who may have worries or behavioural difficulties
  • Fund appropriate enrichment opportunities for eligible pupils to meet their social and pastoral needs e.g. extra-curricular activities for children in school and in school holidays and contributions to the cost of school trips etc.
  • Fund attendance at Breakfast Club to ensure pupils have breakfast and arrive in school on time.

The effect of the pupil premium funding will be measured by:

  • analysing and comparing the attainment of pupils eligible for pupil premium with other pupils.
  • analysing and comparing punctuality and attendance of pupils eligible for pupil premium with other pupils.

 

The Pupil Premium Grant Allocation for St Mary’s in 2018/2019 was £ 17,460. 

The governors of the school targeted this funding to:

  • Provide one to one tuition/ small group tuition by a teacher to enable disadvantaged pupils to narrow gaps in achievement with their peers.
  • Provide pupil counselling opportunities with a fully qualified pupil counsellor to support wellbeing of identified disadvantaged children. 
  • Provide additional teaching assistant (TA) support to deliver personalised teaching programmes.  For example, teachers and teaching assistants deliver small phonics and spelling groups and small mathematics and English intervention groups - this allows pupils to receive phonics lessons in smaller, more personalised and more effective groupings. 
  • Additional TA to support disadvantaged children with additional learning needs in class, to enable pupils those pupils to narrow gaps in achievement with their peers.
  • Provide additional staffing and activities at lunchtimes to support pupils who may have worries or behavioural difficulties
  • Fund appropriate enrichment opportunities for eligible pupils to meet their social and pastoral needs e.g. extra-curricular activities for children in school and in school holidays and contributions to the cost of school trips etc.
  • Fund attendance at Breakfast Club to ensure pupils have breakfast and arrive in school on time.

In 2018/2019 the effect of the funding on eligible and other pupils was:

  • Positive impact on progress, achievement and well-being of all eligible pupils.
  • The progress of eligible pupils in reading, writing and maths when they leave school at the end of KS2 is broadly average. DfE progress figures show that progress is Reading -2.26, writing + 0.75 and mathematics + 1.66. The national average for progress is 0 and the figures for St Mary’s are in the average range and not statistically significant.
  • Across the school, the majority of disadvantaged pupils made expected progress in reading, writing and maths given their starting points.
  • There was one child identified as disadvantaged at the end of Early Years Foundation Stage (Reception Class).  This child is supported by a one-to-one teaching assistant. This child did not attain a ‘good level of development’ but made good progress given their on-entry attainment.
  • There was one child identified as disadvantaged in Y1 who undertook the phonics screening check; this pupil attained the expected standard. The disadvantaged pupil in Y2 who did not attain the expected standard when in Y1 narrowly missed attaining the expected standard when the re-checked at the end of Y2. This child will continue to receive small group phonics instruction to support their development in acquiring phonic skills and knowledge.
  • In 2018/2019 there was one child was identified as disadvantaged at the end of KS1 (Year 2). This child did not attain the expected standard in reading and writing but did attain the expected standard in mathematics. 
  • In 2018/2019 three children were identified as disadvantaged at the end of KS2 (Year 6). One of the children attained the expected standard in reading. Two did not. Two of the children attained the expected standard in writing and mathematics. One did not. All three children attained the expected standard in the Grammar Punctuation and Spelling test. Given their starting points this represented expected progress overall.
  • The attendance of disadvantaged pupils taken as a group (95.47%) is slightly below all pupils in school (97.1%). That said, if the attendance of one child attendance is removed from the disadvantaged group, then the group average is in line with the school average 97.1% and above the national average 96.1%. 
  • One of the group of disadvantaged pupils was identified as being frequently late; this is an area for continued work.
  • One of the group of disadvantaged pupils was identified as having high rates of absence. The attendance of this pupil significantly improved in the least term.