What is it?

The Pupil Premium is funding allocated to schools for the specific purpose of boosting the attainment of pupils from low-income families.

The premium was introduced in April 2011 with the aim of narrowing the attainment gap between children eligible for free school meals (FSM) and those who are not by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the pupils who need it most. It also includes Looked After Children and Services Children.

Funding is based on: children who have registered for a free school meal at any point in the last 6 years (Ever 6); children that are in care or adopted, or were previously (LAC/PLAC); and children whose parents are currently serving in the armed forces (children of service personnel).

To check to see if your child is eligible for Pupil Premium funding (Free School Meals), click on the following link here to apply.

Purpose

The Government believes that the Pupil Premium, which is additional to main school funding, is the best way to address the current underlying inequalities between disadvantaged children, and their peers, by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the pupils who need it most.

Whilst schools are free to spend the Pupil Premium as they see fit, we are required to publish this online along with the impact. Our school's documentation can be found below.

Accountability

The Government believes that Headteachers and school leaders should decide how to use the Pupil Premium funding.

They are held accountable for the decisions they make through:

• the performance tables which show the performance of disadvantaged pupils compared with their peers
• the Ofsted inspection framework, under which inspectors focus on the attainment of pupil groups, in particular those who attract the Pupil Premium
• the reports for parents that schools now have to publish online

Further information about how schools are held accountable can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/pupil-premium-effective-use-and-accountability

Funding

In most cases, the Pupil Premium is paid direct to schools, allocated to them for every pupil who is eligible. Schools decide how to use the funding, as they are best placed to assess what additional provision their pupils need.

For pupils from low-income families in non-mainstream settings, the local authority decides how to allocate the Pupil Premium. The authority must consult non-mainstream settings about how the premium for these pupils should be used.

Further information about the Pupil Premium funding can be found on the Department for Education website here:  https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium/pupil-premium

The government has announced that, for the academic year of 2023-24, the pupil premium and service premium rates will increase in line with inflation. The allocated amounts for the different types of pupils eligible can be found here.

Pupil premium at Newbold Church School

For the academic year 2024-25, our school will receive £1480 of Pupil Premium funding based on numbers in October 2024. The current percentage of our pupils known to be eligible for the pupil premium funding is 47% as of October 2024 (above the national percentage). Therefore, we have a higher than national number of disadvantaged pupils within school.

DDAT's Expectations of it's schools:

Consistent with our academy's vision of 'Offering our children and young people life in all its fullness’, Derby Diocesan Academy Trust (DDAT) aims to maximise the impact of pupil premium funding, while ensuring that we adhere to the government guidance.

• Have a senior leader that takes responsibility for the strategic use of the pupil premium funding, evaluation, and the reporting to accountable bodies. 
• Produce a 3-year strategy for the use of the pupil premium funding. This must:

• • adhere to the guiding principles within this document (see next section)
  • have a clear rationale for the school’s spending of the Pupil Premium funding
  • include a section that identifies the school’s Intent to Spend the pupil premium
  • have carefully targeted activities that enable good learning and readiness
  • demonstrate how their spending decisions are informed by research evidence, making reference to a range of sources including the Education Endowment Foundation’s (EEF) toolkit
  • clearly evaluate the school’s action on an annual basis

• Us to publish information in our Strategy Statement on our website, using either the DfE, trust template or an approved alternative.
• To facilitate training for all staff, so they understand the causes of underachieve, barriers to learning and strategies which help improve the outcomes for disadvantaged pupils.
• To robustly monitor and analyse the academic outcomes, attendance, persistent absence, exclusions, rewards and sanctions and extra-curricular engagement to identify priority areas to address.
• Ensure all local governing bodies to have a link governor for ‘pupil premium’ who has received appropriate training. This link governor acts as a conduit between the school and the local governing body to ensure there is clear oversight of the spending. However, the whole governing body has accountability for the education of disadvantaged pupils.
• To plan a broad, deep, and relevant curriculum that actively seeks to reduce disadvantage with a strong focus on reading, the development of vocabulary, strong careers advice and guidance, social and emotional development, and enrichment.
• Ensure extra-curricular activities are accessible to all pupils and expense must not be a barrier for disadvantaged pupils. 

Main Barriers to closing the Gap

Most pupils begin their Learning Journey at Newbold Church School below the national expectations of Reception age children

Lack of high quality early education and experiences results in poor language skills and poor concentration levels

Many pupils have social and emotional needs that impact on relationships, learning and progress

Low levels of resilience, leading to low expectations, poor independence skills and inability to problem solve / connect areas of learning

Some of our pupils live in areas where high percentages of children are living in poverty. This means that children often come to school without having had a full nights rest, a full evening meal or breakfast and are living in damp and unhygienic homes.  Ensuring daily survival is higher on their priorities than concentrating in lesson, and many cannot as they are worried about what that evening will look like at home.

For some pupils their complex family circumstances can also be considered a barrier. At Newbold there are 2 nurture groups catering for an array of children who have emotional attachment issues due to complicated blended families and unusual parenting techniques.  There is a waiting list for this service.  Children with such background have social and emotional developments to make before they can begin to access the educational and academic requirements that school makes of them.

How it is used

At Newbold Church School, along with other strategies, we use a large portion of our pupil premium to fund additional adults to work in school and support children. This support may be through one-to-one, or small group intervention, in reading, writing and maths. We make use of this extra support for Pre/Post Teaching Time time in an afternoon, as well as Master Class Sessions (MCS) to ensure all children have a strong grasp of Foundational Knowledge. 

By using pupil premium we are able to ensure that pupils reach their potential and meet their targets. Additionally, we also use the funding to develop cultural capital in all our pupils to ensure those who are disadvantaged do not miss out - this is used by funding of trips and residentials or the participation in after school clubs.

The social and emotional needs of our pupils are met by using a proportion of Pupil Premium funding for provision such as Nurture, Art and Play Therapy, Forest Schools and ELSA.  The pupil premium also allows us to fund two Family Resource Workers, who provide parents and families with support at home and into school, attendance monitoring and support and Early Help advice and signposting. 

To find out more about Newbold Church School spending of Pupil Premium funding, please reference the documents listed below.

Our work in school around the allocation of the Pupil Premium grant follows the following research and government guidance:

• DfE (2018) ‘Promoting the education of looked-after children and previously looked-after children’
• Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) (2019) ‘The EEF Guide to the Pupil Premium’
• Ministry of Defence (MoD) (2020) ‘The Service Pupil Premium: what you need to know’

Newbold Church School Pupil Premium Strategy Statement

When making decisions about how to use pupil premium to improve disadvantaged pupils’ attainment, the needs of all pupils in the school are evaluated. The funding is then allocated with the aim of making maximum impact in the school, supporting our vision ‘Nurture, Cherish, Succeed’. Every decision made has the child at the heart of it.

An analysis of our school context shows that although pupil premium does represent a need to improve attainment of the majority of our disadvantaged pupils, not all disadvantaged pupils are underachieving in attainment. Therefore, our focus is to fulfil the highest aspirations in progress to achieve their full potential both academically and personally.  Our focus is in developing the whole child so that they become well rounded individuals, preparing them for the next stage in their education. In line with the DfE guidance the funding is not only spent on eligible pupils.

Research suggests that some of the most effective spending will be on whole school strategies, including improving the quality of teaching, this has been highlighted by the Sutton Trust, whose report on improving the impact of teachers on pupil achievement in the UK revealed that the effects of high-quality teaching are especially significant for pupils from a disadvantaged background – evidence demonstrated the equivalent of 1.5 years worth of learning. Our pupil premium strategy is rooted in our whole-school ethos. We know that if you provide high-quality teaching that is effective for disadvantaged learners, then you are providing effective teaching for all.

At Newbold Church school the Pupil Premium Tiered model balances spending across:

Tier 1:

Continuous Professional Development to improve the quality of teaching Sources of evidence on effective delivery of CPD (such as The Teacher Development Trust’s report ‘Developing Great Teaching’ and the Department for Education ‘Standards for teachers’ professional development’) underline the importance of having sequential CPD opportunities, which are planned through needs of the school. The culture of improvement is planned through the Derby Diocesan Academy Trust where pupil premium leaders network to maximise knowledge, skills and wisdom including sharing good practise of provision and interventions to support raising standards.

Tier 2:

Targeting support for disadvantaged pupils through research based evidence Decisions about how to achieve the maximum impact in the school are informed by research carried out by the Education Endowment Foundation and the National Foundation for Educational Research. The EEF Guide to the Pupil Premium June 2019, support schools in spending their Pupil Premium to maximise the benefit for their students. The report recommends school take a tiered approach to Pupil Premium spending. Teaching should be the top priority, including professional development, training and support for early career teachers and recruitment and retention. This will enable staff to facilitate additional provision including:

• Personalised interventions including MCS for Foundational Knowledge
• Small group tuition
• 1:1 support
• Nurture Group

Tier 3:

Supporting whole school strategies (linked to our school action plan) Targeted support for struggling pupils should also be a key component of an effective Pupil Premium strategy; as well as strategies that relate to non-academic factors, including improving attendance, behaviour and social and emotional support.

Further Information:

Our Pupil Premium Lead in school is Mrs Kerry Marsh (Headteacher), who is also our named member of staff for Looked after Children (LAC) and Previously Looked after Children (PLAC)

She can be contacted, via the school office, on 01246 232370 or, alternatively, by email at headteacher@newbold-pri.derbyshire.sch.uk

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Our nominated Local Academy Committee Member, who is also responsible for overseeing the Looked After Children in school is Mrs Sarah Barden. She can be contacted via the school office 01246 232370, or info@newbold-pri.derbyshire.sch.uk

 Please click here to view the Pupil Premium Strategy Statement for 2023 - 2024

Please click here to view the school's Pupil Premium Policy