Pupil Premium

Current academic year

The Pupil Premium is allocated to children from low-income families who are currently known to be eligible for Free School Meals (FSM), children who have been looked after continuously for more than six months and service children. From April 2012 this also includes pupil eligible for FSM at any point in the last six years (known as the Ever 6 FSM measure). From April 2014 children who have been adopted from care are also eligible for pupil premium funding. 

At Preston Candover, we focus on quality first teaching for all children. Teachers plan a range of differentiated learning to meet the needs of all the children in their class. All staff are involved in planning for children who receive pupil premium funding. There are a range of opportunities for staff to discuss planning and learning with colleagues; during staff meetings , at pupil progress reviews and during key stage meetings. These discussions help teachers to identify where children are at with key concepts and any gaps they may have in order to plan an appropriate diet. This may require additional intervention and therefore each class teacher writes a provision map which identifies how the needs of various children will be met with additional support. This can be in a group or on an indivdiual basis. 

Some children face barriers to their learning. For those children entitled to additional pupil premium funding, we have identified the following external barriers: low attendance, mobility, attachment, low levels of language development. There are also some barriers which may affect and impact on learning and attainment: friendships, social needs in school.

We have carefully considered these barriers in allocating our funding in order for the children to have best opportunities to develop themselves as independent, resilient, confident individuals.

How do we know if this is making a difference?

We track the progress of our children as part of our ‘Pupil Progress’ meetings. This enables us to monitor progress and identify if our FSM children are under performing. If support is required this can then be implemented whether this is additional one to one booster, further SEN support, or support from outside agencies. Before making a decision on allocating the funds, we consider, based in our tracking information, the historical and current progress of each child.

The vast majority of our pupils are performing at or above national average levels. If this is the case our emphasis on the allocation of the fund is based on ensuring that these pupils are not disadvantaged in taking part in our wider curriculum opportunities.

Strategy Review

We continually review the impact of the pupil premium funding during each term and at the end of each academic year.