Pupil Premium
What is Pupil Premium funding?
The Pupil Premium is a significant funding grant provided to state-funded schools and academies in England with its core purpose to close the attainment gap between disadvantaged learners and their peers by providing targeted financial support. Funding is allocated based on specific criteria collected during the school census with funding rates varying depending on the child's background.
Unlike some grants, Pupil Premium is not a personal budget for individual children, and it is not explicitly ring-fenced to named individuals. Instead, schools pool the funding to implement wider strategies that benefit eligible cohorts. The Department for Education (DfE) mandates that spending must align with a strict "Menu of Approaches". This is heavily guided by evidence from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) 3-tiered framework which focusses on:
- High quality teaching - professional development and recruitemnt;
- Targeted academic support - structured interventions;
- Wider strategies - non-academic barriers to learning.
As the funding is substantial, schools face rigorous oversight to prove it is making an impact. We must publish our updated Pupil Premium strategy statement online by 31st December each academic year using the standard DfE template. The strategy includes our plan for how the money is used alongside and annual review of the impact it has had. During Ofsted inspections, the inspectors specifically evaluate how effectively we spend this money, looking at internal tracking data to see if the achievement gap between disadvantaged learners and their peers is actually narrowing.
You can read more about this by clicking on Our Approach to Pupil Premium and our Pupil Premium strategy for 2025 - 2028 below.
