Pupil Premium
What is the Pupil Premium?
The pupil premium plays a key role in the way school is funded. River View Primary School is committed to ensuring that this funding is used to support key groups of children to achieve their full potential. All staff are aware of the needs of our children and we ensure that they all have access to an engaging and well-planned learning experience. We recognise and understand that some groups of children require additional support in order to achieve well and our pupil premium funding helps us to do that. We identify key areas and vulnerable groups for further support and ensure that every opportunity to meet children's diverse needs is explored.
Background
Pupil Premium funding is allocated on an annual basis running from the 1st of April each year. The allocation is made based on the number of children eligible for pupil premium at the 31st of October the year before and revised again in January.
At this school Pupil Premium is divided into three broad categories:
- Children eligible for Free School Meals at any time in the last 6 years.
- Looked after children.
- Nursery children eligible for free school meals.
What is School’s current Pupil Premium Allocation?
The current allocation is £328,043.
The current number of children in school that qualify for the pupil premium is 257 as at December 2017.
What are the main barriers to educational achievement faced by eligible children at the school?
Each year, the Head Teacher and Senior Leaders identify the barriers to learning for the pupil premium children. For this academic year they are as follows:
- Low levels of spoken language.
- Lack of resources at home to support school.
- Low reading levels.
- Lack of parental confidence when supporting maths.
- A narrow experience of life outside school.
- A higher than average number of children with Special Educational Needs.
- Low attendance.
- Broken family structures.
- Loss and bereavement.
- Safeguarding and welfare issues that lead to Children’s Services involvement.
- Less developed parenting skills.
- Poor health of children, sometimes including poor diet.
Information on the impact of pupil premium spending last year.
We use this information to decide how to spend the pupil premium, which strategies we will use and the cost of the strategies. We measure the impact of the spending and use this information to decide if the strategies are working or not. At River View we recognise that the above barriers are not restricted to just those children eligible for the pupil premium so we often include a wider group of children in our strategies even if they are not eligible for the pupil premium. We believe this is a fair approach.
How did we spend our pupil premium allocation last year?
Our overarching aim when spending the pupil premium is to improve educational outcomes for our children who face significant barriers to their learning. This was how we planned to spend the pupil premium funding last year as it appeared on our website.
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How are we using the Pupil Premium funding this year? This year (2016-2017) we have received £336,900 of Pupil Premium funding with additional funding of £7,075 for our Early Years. We will be focusing the use of this funding on interventions to support outcomes. The PiXL programme and the use of additional staff to deliver Precision Teaching is key to improving outcomes and staff have access to the addiitonal resources and materials to work with targeted pupils. How have we continued to use this funding? We have committed a large proportion of our funding to the development of the Child and Family Support Team. This is made up of 3 key members of staff who work with the children and their families to ensure that we are supporting all children both academically, socially and emotionally. Our team ensure that targeted groups of children have access to a broad and balanced provision:
At River View, we are have high expectations of the children, both socially and academically. To achieve this we have invested pupil premium money in a range of projects and initiatives:
We have invested in the PiXL programme to support pupils in Upper Key Stage 2. This has been a success in order to improve end of year outcomes for targteted pupils who work with trained staff to target key aspects of their learning and prepare them for their next steps in education. Pupils progress is accelerated and supports pupils to reach the required standard for their year group. |
Last year from September 2016 to July 2017 we were successful in narrowing the gap for our children at all key assessment points – Look at the chart below.
River View Pupil Premium Comparisons
| All | Pupil Premium | Not Pupil Premium | |
|---|---|---|---|
| EYFS GLD | 83% | 82% | 83% |
| Y1 Phonics | 86% | 84% | 88% |
| Y2 Reading | 69% | 67% | 69% |
| Y2 Writing | 59% | 47% | 66% |
| Y2 Maths | 67% | 63% | 69% |
| Y6 Reading | 45% | 43% | 48% |
| Y6 Writing | 65% | 60% | 59% |
| Y6 GPS | 65% | 63% | 67% |
| Y6 Maths | 60% | 66% | 52% |
| Y6 Combined | 35% | 37% | 33% |
When comparing our results to a national picture our main area for improvement is to increase the amount of children who achieve the expected standard for reading as this has been significantly below average for our pupil premium children for the last two years.
How are we planning to spend our pupil premium allocation to address the barriers we have identified and why?
| How are we spending Pupil Premium this year | Why? |
|---|---|
| Teaching Assistants providing highly effective in-class support, especially for those who have social and emotional difficulties. | Research shows that when teaching assistants are deployed effectively they make a significant impact on children’s outcomes. |
| 1:1 or small group tuition. | Our internal evaluations show good results. |
| Additional support for children with medical and behavioural needs. | This is essential to allow children to access their learning. |
| Attendance Officer focus. | Our data shows that this increases the attendance of our most vulnerable children. |
| Teacher and TA led booster groups. | This maximises learning through providing additional focused teaching in Key subjects. |
| Improved reading resources in school. | This is a basic entitlement especially when these resources aren’t available at home. |
| Use of specialised Teaching Assistants to screen and support children with speech, language and communication difficulties especially in the Reception class. | Our research shows that early identification of additional needs in this area allows us to intervene early before children fall behind. |
| Purchase of additional time from specialist providers such as Educational Psychology. | This provides teachers with accurate and specific information to support children’s additional needs and also supports school staff to evaluate the impact of this support. |
| Create opportunities for children to widen their out of school experience by introducing family walks on Saturdays. | Evidence shows that when children widen their experience out of school it impacts on their academic performance. |
| Investment in an Additional Needs team comprising of 4 SENCO’s, and Attendance Officer, Child and Family Development Officer and a Team Leader. | Our case studies show that a multi-agency approach provides the best chance for children to access their educational entitlement. |
| Investment in an additional Sports Coach focused on increasing physical activity. | Children’s health is improved to support educational outcomes. |
| Investment in an annual subscription to IXL to improve the quality of homework. | Research shows that an increase in the quality of homework set is matched to improved results. |
| Use of the PiXL programme to diagnose and deliver specific therapies for children and groups of children. | Improved teacher expertise supports targeted interventions. |
| Arrange a parent workshop to provide parents with practical resources to support their child’s learning. | There is a clear evidence that parental involvement can be correlated with improved academic outcomes. |
What is the date of the school’s next review of its PP Strategy?
The board of Governors review the pupil premium strategy in the autumn term each year. This year the date of the review is 8th December 2017. Next year it will take place in December 2018.
How does school measure the impact and effect of its expenditure?
In measuring the impact and effect of school’s pupil premium spending we focus mainly on children’s academic outcomes. For most items of spend we look at the cost and whether it made a difference to outcomes. We sometimes ask if outcomes would have been lower if we hadn’t invested in a particular strategy. All school data is analysed across a range of groups and pupil premium is always one of those groups. In this way school leaders, including Governors have a clear picture of what is working and what is less effective.
For information on our Sport Premium funding please visit our Sports & PE page.