Skip to content ↓

Pupil Premium

Annual Funding

The Government believes that the Pupil Premium, which contributes to our school's annual funding, is the best way to address underlying inequalities between children eligible for free school meals (FSM) and those who are not by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the pupils who need it most.

Pupil premium funding is allocated to schools according to the number of pupils  eligible for free school meals or are in care. These pupils are represented in national statistics as being 'disadvantaged'. The aim of the funding is to ‘close the gap’ in attainment between disadvantaged pupils and other pupils who are not disadvantaged.

It is for schools to decide how their Pupil Premium funding is spent since they are best placed to assess what additional provision should be made for the individual pupils within their responsibility.

Pupil Premium Strategy Statement

This statement details our school’s use of pupil premium funding to help improve the attainment of our disadvantaged pupils.

It outlines our pupil premium strategy, how we intend to spend the funding in this academic year and the effect that last year’s spending of pupil premium had within our school.

School overview

Detail

Data

School name

Roger Ascham Primary School

Number of pupils in school

397

Proportion (%) of pupil premium eligible pupils

29%

Academic year/years that our current pupil premium strategy plan covers (3 year plans are recommended)

2023/24 - 

2026/2027

Date this statement was published

September 2023

Date on which it will be reviewed

September 2024

Statement authorised by

Matthew Hanks, Headteacher

Pupil premium lead

Matthew Hanks Headteacher

Governor / Trustee lead

Kelly-Anne Smith-Sinclair

Funding overview

Detail

Amount

Pupil premium funding allocation this academic year

£167,325

Recovery premium funding allocation this academic year

£ 16, 675

Pupil premium funding carried forward from previous years 

0

Total budget for this academic year

£184 000

Pupil Premium Strategy Plan: Statement of Intent

Our intention is that all pupils, irrespective of their background or the challenges they face, make good progress and achieve high attainment across all subject areas. The focus of our pupil premium strategy is to support all disadvantaged pupils to achieve that goal, including progress for those who are already high attainers.

We will consider the challenges faced by our more vulnerable pupils. The activity we have outlined in this statement is also intended to support their needs, regardless of whether they generate pupil premium funding.

High-quality, differentiated teaching is at the heart of our approach, with each child supported in taking their next step when they are ready to do so. Those pupils who require more support to succeed in this will receive it, irrespective of background or social disadvantage. The intended outcomes detailed below, set out to ensure that all pupils’ achievements will be sustained and improved irrespective of social background.

Our approach will be responsive to common challenges and individual needs. To make it effective we will:

  • ensure all pupils are appropriately challenged in the work that they’re set
  • act early to intervene at the point need is identified
  • adopt a whole school approach in which all staff take responsibility for all pupils’ outcomes – regardless of background or social disadvantage and raise expectations of what they can achieve

Review of Pupil Premium outcomes in the previous academic year

This details the impact that our pupil premium activity had on pupils in the 2022 to 2023 academic year.

National assessments in 2023 (and also in 2022 previously) show that our disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils achieve highly.

Our strategies for inclusion and academic achievement are working.

In 2023 nearly half of our children taking Year 6 SATs were from a disadvantaged background. Their SATs results were significantly higher than the national average in all areas.

72% of our disadvantaged pupils achieved at least the expected standard in all three areas of reading, writing and maths combined. This compares to a national average of 59% for all pupils. The national average includes non-disadvantaged and disadvantaged pupils together.

Our pupils’ achievements come in the context of a school that delivers a broad and balanced curriculum and takes the welfare, happiness and success of its pupils most seriously. While our Year 6 pupils get very excited about learning together and doing their best in their SATs, they are not overfed a restricted diet of just reading, writing and maths.

Like all schools, the majority of our expenditure, including Pupil Premium funding, is on staff salaries. Significant strategic changes in expenditure happen over a period of time as a settled, confident staff is essential to our school’s success. Year on year our pupil premium expenditure is fairly consistent – the key themes are focussed intervention groups, specialist support, subsidised enrichment activities and high levels of pastoral care for the most vulnerable. Consistency is a key contributor to our success.

However, since Covid we are very aware of the impact successive school lockdowns have had on the attendance of some disadvantaged pupils. While we rightly celebrate their achievements, we must now focus on ensuring that no pupils are further disadvantaged by low school attendance. Our strategies for improving school attendance for our vulnerable pupils will be reviewed in the forthcoming year.

Challenges

This details the key challenges to achievement that we have identified among our disadvantaged pupils.

Challenge number

Detail of challenge

1

Observations and discussions with pupils indicate underdeveloped oral language skills and vocabulary gaps among many disadvantaged pupils. These gaps are more noticeable among our EAL and disadvantaged pupils than their peers.

2

Assessments show a gap in achievement in writing between our disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils. While headline figures for the two groups are relatively close in both KS1 and KS2; numbers of pupils writing at a greater depth are lower for disadvantaged pupils in both key stages. Numbers of pupils making accelerated progress from the expected level to greater depth are also lower among disadvantaged pupils.

3

Numbers of disadvantaged pupils and families receiving pastoral and multi-agency support are higher than non-disadvantaged peers. We shall continue to commit a high-level of funding to our excellent pastoral and therapeutic provision and in response to increased need, expand the number of hours available to delivering high quality pastoral care.

4

The recent, continuing change in demographic in the local area suggests a widening gap in life experience between our (increasingly affluent) non-disadvantaged families and their disadvantaged peers. The school will continue to promote local holiday activity programmes to our disadvantaged families, prioritizing the most vulnerable. We shall continue to heavily subsidize enrichment activities (such as trips and residential visits) to make them available to all our families.

5

Our attendance data since lockdown shows that attendance among disadvantaged pupils is lower than for non-disadvantaged pupils.

Absenteeism is negatively impacting disadvantaged pupils’ progress.

Intended outcomes

This explains the outcomes we are aiming for by the end of our current strategy plan, and how we will measure whether they have been achieved.

Intended outcome

Success criteria

Improved oral language skills and vocabulary among disadvantaged pupils.

A whole school approach to speaking and listening enables all pupils to better express their thoughts and ideas in a variety of contexts for a variety of purposes and demonstrates their understanding of the school’s approach to developing thinking skills.

 

Improved writing achievement among disadvantaged pupils.

KS2 writing outcomes in 2024/25 and beyond show a steady increase in the number of disadvantaged pupils writing at greater depth.

 

Maintain current high levels of achievement  in reading, writing and maths.

National assessment data continues to be significantly above national averages. Maintain the current picture of our disadvantaged pupils outperforming the national average for all pupils.

 

To sustain high levels of wellbeing for all pupils in our school, particularly our disadvantaged pupils.

Sustained high levels of wellbeing from 2024/25 demonstrated by:

  • qualitative data from student voice, student and parent surveys and teacher observations
  • levels of participation in enrichment activities are equally high among disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils   
  •  

To achieve and sustain improved attendance for all pupils, particularly our disadvantaged pupils.

Improved attendance from 2024/25 onwards demonstrated by:

  • the overall absence rate for all pupils being no more than the national average.
  • the attendance of pupils significantly improves (from being PA to being no longer PA) among the significant majority of pupils whose families are supported by (and engage with) the pastoral team.

Activity in this academic year

This details how we intend to spend our pupil premium (and recovery premium funding) this academic year to address the challenges listed above.

Teaching and Training

Budgeted cost: £31,400

Activity

Evidence that supports this approach

Challenge addressed

Embedding speaking and listening activities across the school curriculum. These can support pupils to articulate key ideas, consolidate understanding and extend vocabulary.

We will purchase resources and fund ongoing teacher training and release time.

 

There is a strong evidence base that suggests oral language interventions, including dialogic activities such as high-quality classroom discussion, are inexpensive to implement with high impacts on literacy:

 

(EEF Oral language interventions )

1, 2

Purchase and implementation of a new phonics programme to secure better consistency across the school in our phonics teaching for all pupils.

Phonics approaches have a strong evidence base that indicates a positive impact on the accuracy of word reading and fluency of independent writing, particularly for disadvantaged pupils:

 

(EEF Phonics)

2

 

Dedicated CPD time (twice every half-term) for all teachers to review and plan for progress of disadvantaged and vulnerable pupils.

 

1, 2, 5

 

Increased and improved interventions to better deliver focussed social and emotional (SEL) learning.

 

SEL groups (eg Lego Therapy) will be developed in addition to existing SEL learning already embedded into the curriculum. This will be achieved through by professional development and training for staff.

 

There is extensive evidence associating childhood social and emotional skills with improved outcomes at school and in later life (e.g., improved academic performance, attitudes, behaviour and relationships with peers):

 

(EEF Social and Emotional Learning)

1, 3, 5

Targeted academic support 

Budgeted cost: £65,400

Activity

Evidence that supports this approach

Challenge addressed

Potential purchase of a programme to improve listening, narrative and vocabulary skills for disadvantaged pupils who have relatively low spoken language skills.

Oral language interventions can have a positive impact on pupils’ language skills. Approaches that focus on speaking, listening and a combination of the two show positive impacts on attainment:

 

(EEF Oral language interventions)

 

1

 

Additional phonics sessions targeted at disadvantaged pupils who require further phonics support. 

 

Phonics approaches have a strong evidence base indicating a positive impact on pupils, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds. Targeted phonics interventions have been shown to be more effective when delivered as regular sessions over a period up to 12 weeks:

 

( EEF Phonics)

 

2

 

Saturday school and targeted intervention groups provided in KS1 and 2 for those pupils in danger of falling behind

 

Tuition targeted at specific needs and knowledge gaps can be an effective method to support, in small groups, low attaining pupils or those falling behind

 

(EEF Small group tuition)

 

1, 2

 

SALT

 

(EEF Communication and language approaches)

 

1, 3

Wider strategies 

Budgeted cost: £87,200

Activity

Evidence that supports this approach

Challenge addressed

Subsidized school trips and residential visits for all disadvantaged pupils

 

4

 

Pastoral team engage with families to follow effective strategies set out in the DfE’s "Improving School Attendance" .

This will involve training and release time for staff to develop and implement new procedures.

 

The DfE guidance has been informed by engagement with schools that have significantly reduced levels of absence and persistent absence.

 

5

 

Continue to provide art therapy to support pupils with considerable barriers to success at school.

 

 

 

3, 5

 

Pastoral team provide vital link between home, school and multi-agency accessibility and support for our increasing numbers (post Covid) of vulnerable families.

 

 

All

Total budgeted cost: £184,000

 

Department for Education
Articles and advice for children and young people.