Pupil Premium & Y7 Catch-up Funding

What is Pupil Premium?

The government believes that the pupil premium, which is provided in addition to main funding, is the best way to address the current underlying inequalities between disadvantaged and their peers by ensuring that funding reaches the pupils who need it most and has provided Pupil Premium funding since April 2011. The government has allocated schools a sum of money which is called the ‘Pupil Premium’. This is to ensure that all pupils, from Reception through to Year 11, are given the same opportunities to achieve and so that no pupil is disadvantaged due to economic or social circumstances. The amount of the grant for pupils in secondary education is £955 per pupil and £310 for students who have a parent working in the armed forces, whilst the premium for looked after children and those adopted from care is £2,345.

The three identified groups entitled to the Pupil Premium are:

1. Students who are currently, or who have been entitled to free school meals at any point over the past 6 years (ever 6)
2. Children in local authority care or adopted from local authority care 
3. Students who have at least one parent working for the Armed Services or have had at some point in the past 4 years (ever 4)

Our approach to Pupil Premium at Graham School

1. Offer and implement a range of strategies – the Pupil Premium students are a diverse group of different ages, backgrounds, abilities and needs.  The essential point is to ensure that disadvantage does not hinder potential.
2. We follow the recommended guidance of using a three tiered approach outlined below:

• Teaching Focus
• Targeted Academic Support
• Wider Strategies

3. To achieve this we have taken guidance from the Ofsted reports ‘The Pupil Premium’, “Evaluation of Pupil Premium” “Pupil Premium: raising achievement of disadvantaged pupils” Research Report, the relevant Sutton Trust reports and recommendations in the Education Endowment Foundation “Teaching and Learning Tool Kit”

Click here to read our Pupil Premium Strategy Statement 2021-22

The Funding

For the Academic year of 2021-22 Graham School has 369 students eligible for the Pupil Premium grant, that’s approximately 38% of the student body. The total amount of funding received from the Government for Pupil Premium spending is £344,755 in total. For a summary breakdown and overview of the spending please see the Strategy Statement above.

We have also received an element of funding to assist school in recovery from the pandemic. This Recovery Funding from the DfE equates to £52,345. It’s spending is also outlined in the Strategy Statement and will focus on academic mentoring, small group tuition and other targeted interventions and learning programmes to accelerate learning.

Year 7 Catch-up Funding

Year 7 catch‐up funding or equivalent provided approximately £29,000 to help support students who are significantly below average in literacy and numeracy on entry to school from KS2. This funding ended in 2020 however we will continue to support students in this way using pupil premium funding as outlined in the strategy.

These are small class groups who have focused literacy and numeracy support in order to more easily access the curriculum and to make good progress. The gains made by students in previous years has been positive and therefore we continue to invest the funding in this ongoing area of need.