Pupil Premium

Introduced in 2011, the pupil premium is a sum of money given to schools each year by the Government to improve the attainment of disadvantaged children.

This is based on research showing that children from low income families perform less well at school than their peers. Often, children who are entitled to pupil premium face challenges such as poor language and communication skills, less family support, lack of confidence and issues with attendance and punctuality. The pupil premium grant is intended to directly benefit the children who are eligible, helping to diminish differences between them and their classmates.

What Makes a Child Eligible

Schools are given a pupil premium grant for:

• Children who have qualified for free school meals at any point in the past six years. The school receives £1345.00 for each of these children. Children don’t currently have to be FSM to be Pupil Premium.
• Children who have been looked after under local authority care for more than one day. These children are awarded a premium of £2345.00.

East Dene Pupil Premium Mission

• ALL staff to deliver high quality lessons for ALL pupils.
• ALL children to have strong self-belief, to be ambitious and secure in setting aspirational personal goals.
• Cultural creativity to be embedded in the curriculum, offering ALL children varied and rich experiences which broaden horizons.
• ALL staff to be accountable for the outcomes of ALL children.

We are committed to enabling all pupils to achieve to the best of their abilities.  We have high aspirations and ambitions for our children and we believe that no child should be left behind.  We strongly believe that it is not about where you come from but your passion and thirst for knowledge, and your dedication and commitment to learning that make the difference between success and failure.  We intend to invest our pupil premium grant in better learning and will, therefore, allocate money to raise the aspirations and achievement of our children from more disadvantaged backgrounds. We believe that one of the biggest barriers to learning for children can be poverty of expectation and aspiration – and so we are determined to create a climate that does not limit a child’s potential in any way.

Some ways we spend our Pupil Premium

• Extra one-to-one or small-group support for children within the classroom.
• Employing extra teaching assistants to work with classes.
• Running catch-up sessions before or after school, for example for children who need extra help with Maths or English.
• Running a school breakfast club to improve attendance.
• Funding educational trips and visits.
• Paying for additional help such as speech and language therapy or family therapy.