Pupil Premium and Catch Up Funding
Pupil Premium
2024-2025
Currently 10.5% of our pupils are pupil premium in school.
What is it?
The Pupil Premium is a government initiative that provides extra funding aimed at pupils from
disadvantaged backgrounds. Research shows that pupils from deprived backgrounds underachieve compared to their peers and that there is a strong link between eligibility for free school meals and underachievement. The Pupil Premium is designed to help each school boost the attainment of disadvantaged children and reduce the gap between the highest and lowest attainers. Pupil premium is allocated to schools for children from low income families who are known to be eligible for free school meals (or have been in the last 6 years), children who are looked after or have previously been looked after and to children of parents who are currently serving in the armed forces. Although pupil premium children may be disadvantaged and face particular challenges, we recognise that these challenges are not necessarily true for all pupil premium children.
It is for schools to decide how best to utilise the Pupil Premium funding and the DFE acknowledges that ‘schools are best placed to assess what additional provision their pupils need’. (DFE 2013) Schools are held to account for how they have spent the money and information on the funding grant has to be published on the school website.
We ensure that all pupils’ learning needs are met appropriately, including Pupil Premium funded children, fully understanding that it is not the additional funding that will close the gap between this group of children and their peers but how we use it. We also recognise that some pupils who do not receive Pupil Premium funding may also have significant barriers to learning and we reserve the right to allocate Pupil Premium funding to any child who has been rightly identified as vulnerable or disadvantaged and at risk of not achieving as well as their peers.
Pupil Premium funding will be used on a needs’ basis linked to our tracking of individual children’s progress and that this funding does not equate children on FSM as ‘low ability’ due to their economic circumstances.
Statement of Intent
At Portreath Primary School, we have the highest expectations for all our children, including our vulnerable cohorts. Our focus on the whole child ensures that we promote and develop self-esteem and self-worth as priorities, knowing that these are the building-blocks to positive relationships in school, and with education. We, as teachers, hold ourselves accountable for the progress and outcomes of our pupils, understanding that when our expectations are high, children will rise to them in a self-fulling cycle of high expectations leading to high levels of self-efficacy and sense of agency, and therefore high achievement. We fully believe that when we unlock learning, we enable life-long life choices.
We ensure that the highest possible standard of teaching is on offer to all children. We believe that by improving teaching and learning further and by providing a high-quality curriculum to all everyone gains, including pupil premium children. As a school we also believe in the principle of equity and that in order for everyone to have an equal opportunity some children need something different or extra. Research shows that developing cultural capital is something that can change children’s lives and open up more opportunities for their future, it can act as a key to unlocking a more advantageous life. We recognise that not all children who receive free school meals will be socially disadvantaged, and we also recognise that not all children that are disadvantaged have free school meals.
What are our ultimate objectives for our disadvantaged pupils?
- Develop their language and vocabulary and help them to develop a love for reading
- Enable them to become confident and effective writers, who also use writing to express themselves
- Raise their levels of numeracy
- Raise the aspirations of the parents and children
- Offer ambitious learning for those from lower starting points or with SEND
- Create successful, ambitious and confident young people
- Give them access to powerful knowledge and cultural capital
- Increase their retrieval and retention of knowledge
- Positively challenge any of their or their families’ views regarding education and school experience if need be
- Develop their resilience, well-being and mental health
- Increase their future employability, positive community engagement and help them to become globally responsible citizens
- Prepare them well for secondary education, a life in modern Britain and, for an exciting future and changing world
Pupil_Premium_Strategy_Statement_Portreath 2024-2027
Portreath PP 2022-2025 strategy grid
Portreath-PP-strategy-statement-2019-2021
PP-strategy-Portreath-2018_2019
Review-of-Pupil-Premium-Expenditure-2017-2018-Portreath-school
The school strives to raise the attainment of this group of children
Staff and governors will:
- ensure Pupil Premium income and expenditure is clearly identifiable within the school budget and will encourage take up of FSM by working proactively with parents and carers, in a sensitive and supportive manner, to remove any potential barriers or stigma attached to claiming FSM.
- have regard for the latest research on how to best narrow attainment gaps and will adapt these as necessary to meet the needs of our children.
- all staff will share responsibility for narrowing the gap and will work together to decide the most effective strategies.
- Miss Clarke, along with Mrs Pamplin oversee the tracking of pupil premium children. Each teacher, each term tracks pupil premium children’s attainment and progress and relevant actions are put into place, recorded and the impact of strategies evaluated.
For further information about Pupil Premium please visit:
https://www.gov.uk/pupil-premium-information-for-schools-and-alternative-provision-settings
If you are not sure if your child would be eligible for FSM, please use the sources below to help you.
Please speak to our school secretary or contact the Cornwall Council on www.cornwall.gov.uk/schoolmeals or tel: 0300 1234 101.
Catch-up Funding
Due to Covid-19 and the school closures in 2020, the government has given all schools catch up funding. Please see the grid below which summarises what we plan to spend this additional funding.