Pupil Premium Grant (PPG) is additional funding given to publicly funded schools in England to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils and close the gap between them and their peers. It is paid to schools and local authorities according to the number of pupils who have been:
- registered as eligible for free school meals at any point in the last 6 years
- registered as a child of a parent serving in the UK’s Armed Forces in the past 5 years
- ‘looked after’ by a local authority for 1 day or more
- adopted from care on or after 30 December 2005, or left care under:
- a special guardianship order
- a residence order
Coombe Road Primary School is committed to diminishing the difference between the attainment of socially disadvantaged pupils and their peers and the PPG funding forms a vital part of achieving this.
- All members of staff and governors accept responsibility for socially disadvantaged pupils and are committed to meeting their pastoral, social and academic needs within the school environment.
- We ensure that appropriate provision is made for pupils who belong to vulnerable groups ensuring that the needs of socially disadvantaged pupils are adequately assessed and addressed.
- We recognise that not all pupils who have ever received free school meals will be socially disadvantaged.
- We recognise that not all pupils who are socially disadvantaged are registered or qualify for free school meals.
- The Governors reserve the right to allocate the pupil premium funding to support any pupils or groups of pupils the school has legitimately identified as being socially disadvantaged or under-performing.
PPG funding is primarily used to support interventions to raise attainment in all areas of the curriculum, particularly reading, writing and mathematics. However it is also used to ensure that the children are given emotional support through the Learning Mentor Team, which in turn helps them to access learning in the classroom and attain more highly. We also use PPG funding to stretch our more able children through 'Able Writers' and tailored interventions in school. The objective of each intervention is to increase the percentage of pupils achieving age-related expectations (ARE) and to ensure our more able children reach their potential.
As a school we feel that it is imperative to focus on early intervention to ensure that the children who start school with low attainment can make accelerated progress to reach age-related expectations. We also feel it is equally important to ensure ALL children make good progress according to their starting point - low, average or high. We place a great deal of intervention into Key Stage 1 and balance this out with quality intervention in Key Stage 2 from quality first teaching supported by Level C Teaching Assistants and Teachers.
Monitoring & Evaluation
The school’s evaluation of its own performance is rigorous. Tracking of progress over time for each pupil is thorough so we can quickly identify any slow progress and develop sensible strategies and interventions to promote improvement.
To guarantee that the Pupil Premium Grant funding is used effectively, we ensure that:
- A wide range of data is used – achievement data, pupils’ work, observations, learning walks, case studies, and staff, parent and pupil voice;
- Assessment data is collected at the start and end of each intervention so that impact can be monitored regularly. These are closely moderated or use approved standardised tests to ensure they are accurate;
- Termly pupil progress meetings between teaching staff and senior leaders enable quick identification of any challenges or barriers to progress and allows the school to develop sensible strategies and interventions to promote improvement for all children - not just the children who are in receipt of PPG;
- Regular feedback about performance is given to children;
- Interventions are adapted or changed if they are not working;
- A designated member of the SLT maintains an overview of pupil premium spending;
- The Assessment Coordinator collates all performance data, analysing and evaluating the effectiveness and value for money of each intervention;
- A Governor is given responsibility for pupil premium grant funding;
- Quantitative data sources used include Analyse School Performance (gov.uk), the local authority’s School Information Packs as well as whole school data (using Target Tracker) to evaluate impact in terms of overall attainment and progress.
Click the links below for our Pupil Premium reports detailing the impact of this funding on pupils' attainment at Coombe Road and our proposals for the coming year: