Pupil Premium

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:

• adoption
• a special guardianship order
• a child arrangements order
• a residence order

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:

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:

• One to one mentoring.
• Small group literacy and numeracy teaching.
• Additional support during revision including resources (eg revision guides).
• Additional support with resources crucial to the curriculum (eg equipment for GCSE Art of Technology).
• Bespoke, next steps careers advice
• Psychological support, including cognitive behaviour therapy and counselling
• Support with tuition to boost performance in a particular subject area.
• Support with attendance on school visits essential for the study of the curriculum.
• Deployment of Teaching Assistants in lessons.

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.

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)

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.

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.