The Government believes that the Pupil Premium Grant, introduced in 2011 and which is additional to main school funding, is the best way to address underlying inequalities between children who are eligible for free school meals (FSM) and their peers, by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the learners who need it most.
Pupil Premium is an additional grant given to learners who:
- have been eligible for free school meals (FSM) at any time in the last six years (£935)
- have been in care for more than six months (£1900) or adopted (of which £500 is retained by the Virtual Headteacher)
- have parents/carers in the armed services, who face particular challenges (£300)
At Bradford Academy we have developed many robust intervention strategies over a number of years; all of which are designed to support each individual learner to achieve their potential. We constantly strive to ‘narrow the gap’ between different groups of learners and fulfil one of our core aims, “to raise standards for all learners by sustaining and enhancing performance and to develop the whole child”.
In addition our research and evidence base has enabled us to formulate a set of principles to guide our use of the Pupil Premium Grant
- We will ensure that Pupil Premium funding is spent on the target group.
- We will maintain high expectations of the target group.
- We will thoroughly analyse which pupils are under-achieving and endeavour to work out why.
- We will be relentless in our pursuit of high quality teaching, not interventions to compensate for poor teaching.
- We will use achievement data to check interventions are effective and make adjustments where necessary.
- We will have a senior leader with oversight of how PP funding is being spent.
- We will ensure that teachers know which pupils eligible for Pupil Premium.
- We will endeavour to demonstrate impact.
- We will have a named governor who will oversee and challenge our use of the Pupil Premium.
The documents provide details on how the allocated funding has been spent to support Pupil Premium Learners.