Pupil Premium

DfE Guidance on Pupil Premium Funding  

The Pupil Premium was introduced in April 2011. Schools can make decisions about how to spend the Pupil Premium funding to ensure that there is a narrowing of the attainment gap.  

The Pupil Premium provides funding for pupils:  

• pupils who qualify for free school meals, or have done at any time in the past six years (£1345 per child)  
• pupils who have a parent serving in the armed forces (£310 per child)  
• pupils who are in the care of, or provided with accommodation by an English local authority (LA) (Children Looked After, CLA) (£2,345 per child)  
• pupils who were looked after by an English or Welsh local authority before being adopted, or who left care on a special guardianship order or child arrangements order (Post CLA ) (£2,345 per child)  Schools are held accountable for the spending of these monies, and performance tables will capture the achievement of disadvantaged students covered by the Pupil Premium.  

Pupil Premium Strategy Statement

This statement details our school’s use of pupil premium funding to help improve the attainment of our disadvantaged pupils. It outlines our pupil premium strategy, how we intend to spend the funding in this academic year and the effect that last year’s spending of pupil premium had within our school.

School Overview

Funding Overview

Detail	Amount
Pupil premium funding allocation this academic year	£35,520
Pupil premium funding carried forward from previous years (enter £0 if not applicable)	£0
Total budget for this academic year If your school is an academy in a trust that pools this funding, state the amount available to your school this academic year	£35,520

Part A: Pupil premium strategy plan

Statement of Intent

In developing our Pupil Premium strategy, we have carefully considered the unique context of our school and the specific challenges faced by our disadvantaged pupils. Our approach is to ensure that the strategies we implement are both effective and offer good value for money. We recognise that the barriers experienced by disadvantaged pupils are varied and complex. Therefore, we adopt a tailored approach rather than a one-size-fits-all solution.   Our key aims are to: – Narrow the attainment gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils. – Ensure all disadvantaged pupils make at least expected progress, with many exceeding national expectations. – Promote positive mental health and wellbeing, enabling pupils to fully engage with their learning. To achieve these aims, we will: – Provide high-quality teaching and learning tailored to meet the diverse needs of all pupils. – Offer targeted support based on thorough assessment of need, including academic and pastoral interventions. – Recognise that eligibility for free school meals does not always reflect disadvantage, and we will allocate Pupil Premium funding to support any pupil identified as disadvantaged by the school. Our priorities include: – Consistently delivering teaching that is good or better across all year groups. – Using Teaching Assistants to deliver focused small-group interventions to close learning gaps. – Providing additional academic and pastoral support to overcome individual barriers. – Enriching learning through subsidised extracurricular activities, educational visits, and cultural experiences. – Implementing strategies to improve behaviour, attitudes, and readiness to learn. – Supporting families to remove financial or practical obstacles to attendance and engagement. Through this strategic and inclusive approach, we are committed to ensuring that all disadvantaged pupils receive the support they need to achieve their full potential.

Challenges

This details the key challenges to achievement that we have identified among our disadvantaged pupils.

Challenge number	Detail of challenge
1	To improve attendance for pupil premium pupils so it meets or exceeds the national average and to reduce persistent absence and repeated lateness.
2	To increase pupil premium pupils’ participation in after-school and enrichment opportunities.
3	To close attainment gaps for pupil premium pupils, particularly by improving progress in writing, so more achieve the combined reading, writing and maths benchmark.
4	To provide targeted support for pupil premium pupils with additional needs to help them make good progress.

Intended Outcomes

This explains the outcomes we are aiming for by the end of our current strategy plan, and how we will measure whether they have been achieved.

Intended outcome	Success criteria
Attendance improves to meet or exceed the national average, with a significant reduction in persistent absence and lateness among these pupils.	Pupil premium attendance rate reaches or surpasses the national average. Persistent absence for pupil premium pupils reduces by at least 10%. The percentage of pupil premium pupils arriving late decreases noticeably.
An increased proportion of pupil premium pupils regularly engage in after-school and enrichment activities, resulting in enhanced social, cultural, and academic experiences.	At least 75% of pupil premium pupils take part in after-school or enrichment activities each term. Increased variety and number of enrichment opportunities accessed by pupil premium pupils.
The attainment gap in writing narrows significantly, and a higher percentage of pupil premium pupils achieve the combined reading, writing, and maths benchmark.	The percentage of pupil premium pupils meeting expected progress in writing increases by at least 10%. More pupil premium pupils achieve the combined reading, writing, and maths benchmark, narrowing the gap with non-pupil premium pupils.
Pupil premium pupils with additional needs make sustained progress, benefiting from tailored interventions that address their specific barriers to learning.	All pupil premium pupils with additional needs have individualised support plans in place.At least 80% of these pupils make expected or better progress over the academic year.

Activity in this academic year

This details how we intend to spend our pupil premium (and recovery premium funding) this academic year to address the challenges listed above.

Teaching (for example, CPD, recruitment and retention)

Budgeted cost: £10,280

Activity	Evidence that supports this approach	Challenge number(s) addressed
Provide CPD and personalised coaching to enhance Quality First Teaching, with a focus on adapting practice to meet the needs of all pupils. Allocate regular meeting time, CPD sessions, and INSET days to drive continuous improvement in QFT – £2215	‘Good teaching is the most important lever schools have to improve outcomes for disadvantaged pupils’ (EEF Guide to Pupil Premium)	3 & 4
Reading, Writing and Maths Boosters in Y4, Y5 and Y6 – £2240	Quality of teaching is the single most important driver of pupil attainment and a range of other positive outcomes- EEF	3 & 4
Purchase of additional equipment, applications (e.g., Clicker 8), and devices to ensure that all PP and SEND pupils can access and record their writing in ways that are appropriate to their individual needs – £4050	A 2023 DfE-supported evaluation across 151 schools found that, following training, 70% of staff felt more confident using assistive technology, with teachers reporting strong positive impacts on pupils’ attainment, behaviour, engagement, and independence.	3
Whole school purchase of Pathways to Spell and Handwriting subscription to target improvements in Writing – £395 + £380	‘Good literacy skills—the ability to read, write, and communicate confidently—are foundational to learning. ….despite our best efforts, a child from a disadvantaged background in England is still significantly more likely … to leave primary school without securing their skills in reading and writing. The most recent data indicates around four in ten disadvantaged 11-yearolds—75,000 children—did not reach expected reading standards at Key Stage 2’. (Professor Becky Francis, EEF)	3
Provide targeted CPD for EYFS staff on the teaching of mark-making and early writing, ensuring approaches are aligned with the new Writing Framework guidelines. Training will focus on developing high‑quality, evidence-based practice to support early communication, language, and literacy skills for disadvantaged pupils – £500	Research from the EEF and other reviews indicates that structured, multi-component teaching of fine motor skills, pre-handwriting, and letter formation leads to measurable gains in emergent writing abilities, especially when paired with verbal prompts and meaningful practice.	3
Improve the quality of social and emotional (SEL) learning. SEL approaches will be embedded into routine educational practices and supported by professional development and training for staff – £500	There is extensive evidence associating childhood social and emotional skills with improved outcomes at school and in later life (e.g. improved academic performance, attitudes, behaviour and relationships with peers): EEF	1, 2,3 & 4

Targeted academic support (for example, tutoring, one-to-one support structured interventions)

Budgeted cost: £14,980

Activity	Evidence that supports this approach	Challenge number(s) addressed
KS2 Reading intervention: Toe-by-Toe – £540	‘Evidence indicates that one to one tuition can be effective, delivering approximately five additional months’ progress on average’ ‘Overall, evidence shows that small group tuition is effective… Once group size increases above six or seven there is a noticeable reduction in effectiveness’ (EEF Toolkit)	3
WellComm Interventions and CPD – £4220	Wellcomm screening, staff training and staff resource time enable us to track pupil’s language, communication and interactions and implement interventions for those pupils who are not on track.	4
Implement Colourful Semantics as an intervention, with the aim of embedding the approach into daily writing teaching – £500 (CPD) + £6480	A report from Plymouth Learning Partnership (May 2025) described the class‑wide benefits of adopting Colourful Semantics: children became more independent in forming grammatically and semantically correct sentences, built confidence to participate in oral tasks, and began self‑correcting by using fuller sentence structures	3 & 4
Fine motor skill intervention – £3240	Explicit practice in fine motor control (e.g. tracing, timed transcription, guided handwriting) significantly boosts writing fluency and prepares children for formal writing tasks.	3 & 4

Wider strategies (for example, related to attendance, behaviour, wellbeing)

Budgeted cost: £10,260

Activity	Evidence that supports this approach	Challenge number(s) addressed
Subsidising after school clubs to improve wider curriculum access – £3600	‘Sports participation interventions engage pupils in sports as a means to increasing educational engagement and attainment….The overall impact of sports participation on academic achievement tends to be positive’ (EEF: Sports Participation)	1 & 2
Subsidising residential offer for Year 6 pupils and all school trips – to widen pupil experiences and provide cultural capital opportunities – £525	Adventure education usually involves collaborative learning experiences with a high level of physical (and often emotional) challenge. Practical problem-solving, explicit reflection and discussion of thinking and emotion (see also Metacognition and self–regulation) may also be involved. All the above have been shown to have a positive impact on outcomes- EEF	2
Bespoke interventions that support social and emotional regulation – £3435	Both targeted interventions and universal approaches can have positive overall effects: Behaviour interventions | EEF (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk)	1
Training and supervision for ELSA staff – £1200	Both targeted interventions and universal approaches can have positive overall effects: Behaviour interventions | EEF (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk)	1
Create an outdoor classroom area, to take learning experience outside of the classroom – £1500	Systematic reviews consistently link outdoor activity and natural settings with improved mood, reduced anxiety, and emotional restoration through biophilia and stress reduction pathways Independent Education Today+9National Literacy Trust+9Muddy Puddle Teacher+9ResearchGate.	1, 2 & 4

Total budgeted cost: £35,520

Part B: Review of outcomes in the previous academic year

Pupil premium strategy outcomes

This details the impact that our pupil premium activity had on pupils’ attainment in the 2024 to 2025 academic year. The tables below display the % of children (All, PP and Non- PP) at ARE (Age Related Expectations).  

2024 -2025 Outcomes
End of KS2	PP	Non PP	ALL
% of Cohort	22%	78%
Y6 RWM	14%	80%	66%
Y6 Reading	43%	92%	81%
Y6 Writing	57%	84%	78%
Y6 Maths	14%	80%	66%
Y6 Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling	29%	80%	78%
End of Reception	PP	Non PP	ALL
% of cohort	11%	89%
Early Years Good Level of Development	100%	71%	74%
Year 1	PP	Non PP	ALL
% of cohort	15%	85%
Y1 Phonics	100%	75%	78%

Disadvantaged pupils perform strongly in the early stages of school, achieving equal to or above their non‑disadvantaged peers in both the Early Years Foundation Stage (100% PP vs 71% non‑PP GLD) and the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check (100% PP vs 75% non‑PP), indicating highly effective early reading provision and phonics teaching (Little Wandle). However, by the end of Key Stage 2 significant attainment gaps emerge, particularly in combined Reading, Writing and Maths (14% PP vs 80% non‑PP) and in Maths specifically (14% vs 80%), equating to a 66‑percentage‑point gap. While Reading shows the smallest gap (49pp), outcomes for PP pupils remain considerably lower, with Writing identified as a relative strength (57% PP). These disparities appear to be cohort‑specific rather than reflective of whole‑school trends but highlight the need for targeted support in upper KS2, especially in Maths and combined RWM outcomes. Close monitoring of upcoming cohorts has identified that Writing is now a key area for development, while Maths is emerging as a strength, allowing future interventions to be tailored accordingly.

Externally provided programmes

Please include the names of any non-DfE programmes that you purchased in the previous academic year. This will help the Department for Education identify which ones are popular in England

Programme	Provider
N/A	N/A

Service pupil premium funding (optional)

For schools that receive this funding, you may wish to provide the following information:

Measure	Details
How did you spend your service pupil premium allocation last academic year?	N/A
What was the impact of that spending on service pupil premium eligible pupils?	N/A

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