Monday 18th February 2013
The Pupil Premium was introduced by the Coalition Government in April 2011 to provide additional support for looked after children and those from low income families. The extra funding is made available to schools to help them narrow the attainment gap that still exists between pupils from disadvantaged and more affluent backgrounds. In 2012/13 schools received £623 per eligible pupil (those entitled to free school meals, or looked after children) in their delegated budget; in 2013/14 this amount will increase to £900 per eligible pupil.
The Government asked Ofsted to investigate how effectively schools were using the additional funding and the following reports and tool have been published by Ofsted.
Pupil Premium report - September 2012
In 2012-13 schools were allocated a total of £1.25 billion funding for children from low-income families who were eligible for free school meals, looked after children and those from families with parents in the Armed Forces. The aim of this first survey was to identify how schools were using this money to raise achievement and improve outcomes for these pupils. The survey is based on the views of 262 school leaders gathered through inspections and telephone interview questionnaires conducted by Her Majesty's Inspectors.
January 2013 report - How schools are spending the funding successfully to maximise achievement
There are many schools that are getting this right, as this report explains and highlights. They have been able to tell inspectors exactly where the Pupil Premium funding is being spent and can demonstrate how and why it is having an impact. The best school leaders know what they want to achieve from each of their interventions and they evaluate progress thoroughly to make sure these are working. They also have well thought-through plans for building on their success. Crucially, many of these good schools are concentrating on the core areas of literacy and numeracy to break down the main barriers to accessing the full curriculum. They are also focusing on the key stages of a child's development in their school career.
According to this report, the best primary schools are making sure that poorer children have all the help they need to grasp the basics of reading, writing and mathematics right at the start of their education so that they don't have to catch up later.
The best secondary schools are finding out where the basic skills gaps exist among eligible pupils as soon as they arrive in Year 7 and deploying their best teachers to help close these gaps. In particular, these schools are using the additional funding provided through the Pupil Premium to employ teachers with a good track record of working with disadvantaged pupils.
The Pupil Premium - analysis and challenge tool for schools
This booklet accompanies Ofsted's Pupil Premium report (January 2013). It contains a series of tools that schools can use to help them to analyse where there are gaps in achievement between pupils who are eligible for the Pupil Premium and those who are not, and to plan the action they need to take.
Pam Langmead