Pupil Premium Funding
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 children who are Looked After in Local Authority care or who are eligible for free school meals (FSM) and their peers, by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the pupils who need it most. Nationally as a group, children who have been in these groups at any point in time have consistently lower educational attainment than those who have never been so.
The level of the premium awarded to schools for the 2015-16 financial year is £1300 per pupil eligible for free school meals (FSM) in any of the previous six years or £1900 per pupil who is Looked After in care. At All Saints Pupil Premium funding is used to continue to ensure that barriers to learning are overcome and potentially vulnerable pupils are not disadvantaged. Provision includes:
- employment of Teaching Assistants to support individual and groups of children both in whole class teaching and in individual or small group work
- additional learning opportunities that meet the wider social and emotional needs of pupils, delivered by school staff, mentors or outside providers
- training for staff who carry out targeted interventions with pupils so that they are effective in accelerating pupils’ progress in reading, writing and mathematics
- buying in the services of a robust Education Welfare Service that supports the school in tackling poor attendance and punctuality
- employment of a Family Support Worker who provides emotional and social support to pupils and families.