Q. Anyone here know about Pupil Premium?

Depends what you want to know. I know a bit from a teacher point of view.

Hi Eclair,

From my understanding schools get extra money for children on FSM's as they are seen as possible under achievers and this money is to be used to close the gap for those children in relation to their peers, is this right?

If it is what happens to the money if the children are actually 'top of the class?'

What can the money be spent on and should this spend be reported to all parents?

Thanks

Pupil premium is about £900 per child. However, this money is just added to the school budget, it doesn't remain personally allocated to a child. The bulk of it generally gets spent on additional adult support (TAs, LSAs, ELSAs etc) to give extra help to pupils who need it. This will vary depending on the school and how many FSM children there are, and the area etc. I heard a recent statistic that out of all the kids who got an A* in their GCSE's this year, only 5% were on FSM. Obviously there are many exceptions, and being on FSM doesn't mean you can't achieve, but there are reasons why they are given extra support.

Being "top of the class" doesn't really tell you anything. The money isn't used to close the gap between them and the rest of the class but between them and the national average. Each child in a class could be under-achieving (i.e. not on course to get a secure level 2 at the end of KS1 and a secure level 4 at the end of KS2.)

If a child on FSM is not under-achieving and they are reaching all of their targets then the pupil premium won't necessarily affect them. It depends on how each individual school chooses to spend the money. Every school needs to report how they are spending the money and I'm fairly sure this needs to be a public document.

Hope that helps a bit.

Just to echo wants been said. The money isn't ring fenced and up to the school how it is spent. x

My school has details of how we spend ours on our school website if that helps

Tends to be specifically for LACs. School should have to document and show how its spent. For example, I bought one of my LaCS in my year group a new lap top.

We have a list of pupils who are on fsm so that we can idnetify how they access pupil premimum money. For the majority of the children through SALT invovmement and the employment of an additional teaching assistant to support the teaching of phonics by giving children extra one to one support. OFSTED will ask how PP is being used to support the children through whom we get the funding, for some it may not be a 'specific thing' e.g. it may be emotional support which you can't exactly identify.

Thanks everyone for your replies, it has helped answer some of my questions, and possibly saving me from looking like a bit of a numpty at parents evening!

Just as background I have one child in yr6 who is predicted a 5b's & a's, and another in yr1 who is way above target for end of yr1 already. I know I am very lucky that I have no worries about their educational achievements and I appreciate that the money is to be used to bring low achievers up to the average, but I was ideally hoping that if the 'premium' could have been used to support the younger one and by some means keep her interest up, as in my opinion she has 'needs' to.

Thanks all

Jaw

Hi Jaw,

It is a Gov initiative and whilst your points are valid ones, schools dont tie the funding to individual children generally as that would be a logistical nigtmare. It is more about making sure scls with more vulnerable children are well resourced to do so. Therefore the money is unlikely to be moved from your oldest to youngest. Generally schools put in more resources, such as a higher number of teaching assistants, in the younger years in primary anyway, due to a focus on early intervention and support