Pupil Premium Strategy
What is Pupil Premium?
Publicly-funded schools in England get extra funding from the government to help them improve the attainment of their disadvantaged pupils. Evidence shows that children from disadvantaged backgrounds:
- generally face extra challenges in reaching their potential at school
- often do not perform as well as their peers
The pupil premium grant is designed to allow schools to help disadvantaged pupils by improving their progress and the exam results they achieve.
Pupil Premium is allocated to children from low income families who are currently known to be eligible for free school meals or have been within the last six years; children who have been looked after continuously for more than six months and children of armed service personnel.
These groups of children have been identified nationally as achieving at a lower level than children from less disadvantaged backgrounds.
The main aim of our pupil strategy is based on our whole school Vision ‘Together We Grow, Together We Give’. We want to ensure that all of our disadvantaged pupils flourish and they know that they have a powerful voice to make a difference in the world. We have the highest of aspirations for our disadvantaged children, ensuring access and opportunities to quality-first teaching. We know that great teaching is ‘the most important lever schools have to improve outcomes for their pupils’.(EEF) Providing opportunities for professional development—for example, to support curriculum planning or focused training will pay huge dividends in the classroom.
Parents have played a key role in supporting children to learn at home and it will be essential that schools and families continue to work together as pupils return to school.
“Equity is not the same as equality. It means schools doing more for some children than others in order to create a more level playing field. Recognising that some children have a very narrow experience outside school and providing them with additional opportunities is an important step in ensuring that they can make the most of their educational opportunities.” Sir John Dunford.
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has provided research-based strategies on how best to support vulnerable pupils. This guidance has been the starting point for our catch-up strategy.
At St Giles how we build a fully inclusive space for all and particularly those learners experiencing disadvantage, is crucial.
Through quality teaching, the design of our curriculum and its implementation and pastoral support, we aim to create spaces where all children belong.
We aim to challenge that mindset that seeks to predetermine the capacity of each learner, replacing it instead with a curiosity about what the learner can achieve. As teachers we should approach teaching with a sense of openness, looking to be surprised by our learners and what they can achieve.
...our curriculum should whisper to our children, “You belong. You did not come from nowhere. All this came before you, and one day you too might add to it.”(Ben Newmark)
Through the design of our curriculum and its implementation, we aim to create learning spaces where all children belong.