Pupil Premium and catch-up

What is Pupil Premium?

The Pupil Premium (PP) is additional funding given to schools in England to raise the attainment of disadvantaged students and close the achievement gap between them and their peers.

The funding is available to the following groups of students:

Students who are eligible for Free School Meals (FSM).
Students that have been eligible for FSM in the last six years (FSM Ever 6).
Students who are looked after or in care (CLA).
Students who are under special guardianship.
Students from a forces background.

The school receives funding for each of the groups of students in varying amounts. This must be used to improve disadvantaged students’ aspirations; raise students’ outcomes for attainment and progress; improve attendance; develop positive attitudes to learning; and support students with, or remove, financial barriers that could be hindering their progress within school.

At Denefield we are committed to ensuring disadvantaged students have the same high aspirations and opportunities to enable them to exceed their potential. The support and intervention strategy is led by one of our Senior Leadership Team. We decide the strategies chosen to raise our students’ attainment and progress based on the findings of The Sutton Trust (EEF) and other credible educational evidence.

The funding has been used in a number of different areas, including but not limited to:

Teaching staff: to employ additional teaching staff to reduce class sizes and impact students’ outcomes;
Tuition: to support the staffing of specialist interventions in literacy, numeracy and reading, particularly (though not exclusively) in Year 7;
Support Staff: to provide coaching/mentoring to help students achieve their full potential, offering additional support to those students who need greater intervention; to support the cost of Edison staffing and targeted academic and social interventions; to improve attendance through a dedicated attendance officer; to increase staffing in order to run homework club;
Student Managers: to support students' attendance; act as a parental liason; develop students’ pro-social behaviours, self-esteem and attitudes to learning;
Other interventions: 1:1 tuition for targeted students, staff training/inset CPD and teaching materials; revision sessions for students; breakfast clubs; small group English, Maths, Science support; Rushall Farm project and Boxing Clever Programme;
Wider curriculum experience: ensuring that all students have equal access to experiences and opportunities that form the wider life of our school for example: school trips, educational visits, extra-curricular activities;
Provide physical and virtual resources, such as revision materials, which remove barriers to learning.

If your child does not have FSM, but may be eligible because of your family's income level, please contact West Berkshire to apply. Even if you do not wish for them to have the meals, the school could still claim Pupil Premium funding that may be used to help your child.

For more details about the Pupil Premium please visit: http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/pupilsupport/premium

What is Catch-Up Premium?

The literacy and numeracy ‘Catch-Up Premium’ gives schools additional funding to support Year 7 pupils who did not achieve the expected standard (ie a score of 100 or more) in reading and/or Maths at the end of Key Stage 2 (KS2).