Pupil Premium Strategy

Pupil Premium is additional funding given to schools to address the current underlying inequalities between children eligible for free school meals (FSM), some other disadvantaged children and their peers by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the pupils who need it most.

Schools also receive funding for children who have been looked after continuously for more than six months, and children of service personnel.

The Government believes that it is for schools to decide how the Pupil Premium Grant (PPG), allocated per eligible pupil, is spent, since they are best placed to assess what additional provision should be made for the individual pupils within their responsibility.

Schools are required to publish online information about how they have used the Premium. This is to ensure that parents and others are made fully aware of the attainment of pupils covered by the Premium.

Closing the attainment gap

At Hollins Grundy, we pride ourselves on having high aspiration and ambition for all pupils, regardless of their background. We plan to enable all children to have the skills, knowledge and confidence to succeed.

We have high expectations for all of our pupils, and believe that with great teaching and a lot of love and care, every child can fulfil their potential. Some interventions are adopted on a whole school basis and are not restricted to FSM registered pupils only. However, the implementation of some intervention programmes would not have been possible without the Pupil Premium. School strategies are targeted towards improvement in the attainment and progress of pupils and on improving their social and emotional health and wellbeing.

A number of these key strategies are resourced from the schools’ main budget, including educational support staff and a high quality teaching  programme for phonics. We have allocated the additional Pupil Premium funding to specific initiatives to support the most disadvantaged pupils. The key objective is to narrow the gap between pupil groups and to enable further progress.

The achievement of our pupils is good-however levels of attainment are lower for some children who are eligible for free school meals (FSM). While we recognise that this is a national trend, we are committed to doing everything we can to close this achievement gap, particularly in reading at the end of Key Stage 2.  Through the application of high quality programmes and provision overall, we aim to eliminate barriers to learning and progress.

The use of targeted interventions is also important. Children who start with low attainment on entry will need to make accelerated progress in order to reach at least age-related expectations. It is also important that low attaining pupils grow in confidence and independence. Therefore, quality social experiences in and outside school can also have a significant impact. It must also be remembered that there can be children who, whilst being eligible for FSM and Pupil Premium, are not low attaining but may not be maximising their full potential. We must therefore never confuse eligibility for the Pupil Premium with low ability. We must focus on supporting all disadvantaged children to achieve the highest levels.

Funding is allocated within the school budget by financial year. This budget enables the school to plan its intervention and support programme. Expenditure is therefore planned and implemented by academic year as shown.

As an inclusive school (we were awarded the Bury inclusion Quality Mark in 2022) Hollins Grundy strongly believes that no pupil should be disadvantaged as a result of background and ensures that resources and support are also provided for children who may not necessarily be eligible for free school meals or looked after, but who have been identified by the school as being at an educational disadvantage compared to their peers.

Principles

• We ensure that quality first teaching meets the needs of all the pupils.
• We 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.
• We also recognise that not all pupils who are socially disadvantaged are registered or qualify for a free school meal. 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 socially disadvantaged.
• Pupil premium funding will be allocated following a needs analysis which will identify priority classes, groups or individuals. Limited funding and resources mean that not all children receiving free school meals will be in receipt of pupil premium interventions at one time.

Rationale

 Analysis of data indicates that the school has done well in improving outcomes for some disadvantaged children across all three key stages, whilst others, with more complex needs make less progress. Data indicates that the attainment of children entitled to PPG is closely matched to their peers in the younger classes. There remains a gap for children in the later years of Key Stage 2, where attendance in the current academic year has also been an issue.

Rapid progress is required for PPG pupils in key stage 2 with specific emphasis on mathematics, and English in Year 6.  Funding has also been allocated to support families who struggle financially to fund school trips.

 How will the school measure the impact of the Pupil Premium?

 Data collection and the monitoring and tracking of the cohort’s attainment will be used to identify need and support required. To monitor progress and attainment, the school will review the impact of actions taken and will plan for how the funding will be specifically allocated.

The key measures that will inform impact are:

• Pupil progress meetings will make sure that pupils’ progress is monitored
• In-school tests and assessments of spelling, arithmetic and reasoning alongside teacher assessments will track the progress and attainment of pupils
• Year 1 phonics screening test will demonstrate pupils making good progress
• Year 2 and Year 6 assessments will demonstrate that Pupil Premium children progress in line with other pupils and attain age related expectations and above.
• Monitoring of achievement in children’s books will enable progress and attainment to be tracked and analysed

Review

A review of the above Pupil Premium strategy will take place termly, as part of pupil progress meetings with every class and in July as part of the whole school data analysis.