The pupil premium is additional funding for publicly funded schools in England to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils of all abilities and to close the gaps between them and their peers.
Use of Pupil Premium and Service Premium Funding
Introduction
The Pupil Premium is a government grant allocated to schools, specifically to improve the achievement of a group of disadvantaged students that nationally do not perform at the same level as their peers. This group consists of students who are in receipt of free school meals (FSM), who have been in receipt of free school meals within the last six years (FSM Ever 6), who have been looked after continuously for the past 6 months (LAC) or who have been adopted from care. In addition, the school also receives a separate Service Children’s Premium, which applies to the children of parents or carers who are serving in the Armed Forces. The Service Children’s Premium is intended to support the academic and pastoral needs of Service Children.
For the year 2019/20 the Pupil Premium has a value of £935 per eligible pupil and £2300 for children classified in one of the following:
At the beginning of the academic year 2018/2019, there were 10 students eligible for Pupil Premium and 1 for Service Children’s Premium here at Breckenbrough School. The main barriers to learning for our students are mainly down to their complex needs such as Autistic Spectrum Disorder, for which all of our students have an EHCP (Education Health Care Plan). This can lead to a number of barriers, with the most common aspects being high anxiety levels, potential lack of schooling in previous years and low aspirations due to negative experiences in previous provisions. It is our aim at Breckenbrough School to allow all children to realise their potential and one way in which we seek to do this is by careful allocation of funding, using targeted intervention and support work to ensure that the needs of each student are met. The government do not specify how this Pupil Premium and Service Premium money should be spent but it is clear that it must be used, with careful consideration within the context of the school and students’ needs, so that the achievement gap is closed.
Pupil Premium Students at Breckenbrough School
Breckenbrough School is a non-maintained special school with a significantly lower than average cohort of students entitled to the Pupil Premium. The current breakdown (Sept 2019) of student numbers is as follows:
| Total PP | FSM | LA | Adopted from Care | Service | Percentage of cohort | |
| Year 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| Year 8 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10% |
| Year 9 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 50% |
| Year 10 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 20% |
| Year 11 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 20% |
| Total | 10 | 10 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 16.6% |
Closing The Gap: an overview of strategies
All students, Pupil Premium or not, are tracked and monitored closely through the school’s reporting system. At Breckenbrough School, this is achieved through a holistic approach incorporating both academic and social progress. After each reporting cycle our Deputy Headteacher, data co-ordinator subject leaders and teaching staff analyse data thoroughly to identify any concerns. From this analysis, students are selected for intervention, which is designed to meet their specific needs. Our success so far in narrowing the gap is not due to one single intervention or strategy but a combination of these, which when taken together, can have a significant impact on students’ progress.
Strategies employed have included:
This list is by no means exhaustive. These strategies, in particular the mentoring of students, are overseen and evaluated by the Deputy Headteacher.
Pupil Premium Allocation 2018-2019
Breckenbrough School is a non-maintained special school and because of this our funding comes directly from the Local Authorities that place students into our provision. Our Pupil Premium allocation also comes directly from the local authorities and we often find that once a student is placed here and the fees for that placement are paid the local authority hold back on the pupil premium funding for a student. This is often out of our control and although we do go back the local authorities on this issue it often goes unresolved.
In 2018-2019 our funding allocation for the academic year was £13,315.
Outlined below is a summary of the key interventions and support in place.
| Pupil Premium Spending 2018-2019 | ||
| Type of Intervention | Cost | Description |
|
Improving Outcomes
|
||
| Data co-ordinator | Our newly appointed data co-ordinator has the remit to collate progress data for all subjects and within year groups to allow for a better analysis of underperforming students, a closer view on groups of students and the interventions needed in response. | |
| Supporting The Learning of the Students | ||
| Teaching assistants | The school employs a large number of LSA’s into school in order to support students both inside lesson, outside lessons at lunchtime. 1 to 1 sessions both within class and outside class helps to build confidence within lessons and also allows a greater detail and depth to be achieved within each student and their learning. | |
| Intervention support | 2 intervention support workers help our students with specific areas such as speech and language, as well as working alongside students to form the bespoke package we offer as a school. | |
| Staff Development and Training | ||
| Action research and development of effective use of feedback | Linked to whole school priorities we have undertaken staff development of their feedback practise due to the outcome research done on effective feedback. | |
| Information and Guidance | ||
| Careers guidance | Ensuring the Pupil Premium students make appropriate choices and are offered sound advice concerning their future is extremely important to Breckenbrough School. A mixed approach of external providers for a small cohort to an in house careers advisor allows a truly bespoke approach. | |
| Tuition and Study Support | ||
| Post 16 independent study support | A post 16 independent study advisor has been appointed to work closely with students and parents | |
| Revision materials/Essential materials for practical subjects at GCSE (e.g. Art, DT) | Essential items for subjects are bought specifically for our Pupil Premium students. | |
| Individual support resources | These are very specific miscellaneous items that students need throughout the year and are deemed essential to part or all of the curriculum. This year we have contributed from the PP fund for a student to access guitar lessons, which forms part of his GCSE music course. | |
| Software packages to support learning | Specific software packages are available to all our students and they allow our Pupil Premium cohort to access the curriculum in a range of subjects. | |
| SMSC – Educational Visits | SMSC visits happen across all year groups and are part funded through the Pupil Premium. We feel it is essential to allow all students to experience a wide range of different cultures, thus fostering a sense of understanding within society. | |
| TOTAL | £13,315 | |
Due to the small numbers of Pupil Premium students at Breckenbrough, in a bid to further raise aspirations, increase progress and improve outcomes for our cohort, we have looked to utilise free initiatives to strengthen the offer of support (e.g. guidance and intervention).
Our PP cohorts are very small with the total number of students at the school averaging 58 each year. The progress data below shows the % of students achieving their expected and more than expected progress in both Maths and English. Given the very small numbers in the data sets there can be a large sway in terms of % hence the number of students shown in brackets giving some context to each %.
Key Stage 4 Progress (Within School Gap)
| 2018 | 2019 | |||||
| Measure | Pupil Premium | Other students | Gap | Pupil Premium | Other students | Gap |
| Expected Progress (English) | 42.8% | 64.8 | -22 | 80 | 60 | 20 |
|
Expected Progress (Maths) |
28.5 | 27 | 1.5 | 50 | 57 | -7 |
| More Than Expected Progress (English) | 14.2 | 5.5 | 8.7 | 10 | 2 | 8 |
| More Than Expected Progress (Maths) | 42.8 | 24 | 18.8 | 10 | 5.7 | 4.3 |
Key Points
Evaluation of Impact of Pupil Premium on Outcomes
Estimated Pupil Premium Allocation 2019-2020
At June 2019, our expected funding allocation for the academic year 2019-2020 is £15,870 for 14 Pupil Premium students.
| Predicted Pupil Premium Spending 2019-2020 | ||
| Type of Intervention | Cost | |
| Student Support Staff | ||
| £2000 | Revision guides, text books, art equipment etc, for PP students could be accessed by teaching staff. | |
| Curriculum Support | ||
| £3165 | An allocation of 1:1 teaching may be required at certain points of the year depending on need and this would be subsidised through our PP budget if there was a cross over. | |
| Support Clubs | ||
| £1500 | Music support for students accessing music at KS3 & 4 is supplied in the form of peripatetic music teachers that come on site during the year. | |
| Staff Development and Training | ||
| £1650 | Staff are allocated training requirements on PP during each year through their departmental allocations. | |
| Information and Guidance | ||
| Tuition and Study Support | ||
| £1500 | A post 16 independent study advisor has been appointed to work closely with students and parents | |
| SMSC – Educational Visits | ||
| £3500 | Trips for PP students are subsidised and where these trips are of an academic nature they will be paid in full. | |
These trips allow students the ability to practice their social skills in real environments as we know social and emotional growth is as necessary as academic for those students with ACS.
Our next review of Breckenbrough School’s Pupil Premium strategy is due in July 2020.
Simon Bannister – Headteacher – BA (Hons) PGCE Dip (SEN) NPQH
James Shutt – Deputy Headteacher – BA (Hons)
Stuart Edwards – Head of Social Education and Designated Safeguarding Lead – DipHE
Sue Jones – Bursar
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North Yorkshire YO7 4EN
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