Cranbrook Church of England Primary School

Pupil Premium

What is the Pupil Premium?

The Pupil Premium is a government initiative that targets extra money at pupils from deprived backgrounds. Research shows that pupils from deprived backgrounds underachieve compared to their non-deprived peers.

Currently, the premium is worth £1320 and goes to pupils who are currently on Free School Meals (FSM) or have been registered for (FSM) in the past six years, children in care, adopted children and service children also continue to qualify for the Pupil Premium.

The Premium is provided to enable these pupils to be supported. The Government considers the above groups as indicators of deprivation, and has provided a fixed amount of money for schools per pupil based on the number of pupils registered for FSM over a rolling six year period. This fixed amount of money is expected to increase every year for the course of this current Parliament. At Cranbrook we will be using the indicator of those eligible for FSM as well as identified vulnerable groups as our target children to ‘close the gap’ regarding attainment.

Comment from Latest Ofsted Report (April, 2017) 

"Leaders are making better use of the pupil premium grant  ... as a result, gaps between the achievement of disadvantaged pupils and that of other pupils nationally are closing". 

What is the school’s allocation of Pupil Premium Funding?

What percentage of our pupils are eligible for Pupil Premium Funding?

The figures for Pupil Premium Eligibility are taken from the school census. At this time, we had 34% of pupils on roll who were eligible for Pupil Premium Funding. All of these were identified under the Ever6 category, (i.e. in receipt of Free School Meals at any point in the past six years).

What is our Pupil Premium strategy?

• To increase learning, progress and attainment through targeted group work, additional teacher input and 1:1 tuition to help bring pupil premium students' attainment in line with their peers;
• To help to fund additional support staff including Family and Community Manager and Learning Behaviour Mentor to improve behaviour for learning and parental engagement;
• To provide training for staff to ensure 'Quality First' teaching of Maths and English, to accelerate progress;
• To develop a Forest School to improve attitudes to learning, motivation, confidence and wellbeing, ensuring all children are happy and confident learners.

What was the Pupil Premium Funding spent on in the academic year 2022-2023?

• Attendance and parental support from the Family and Community Manager.
• Increasing pupil engagement through a creative curriculum, online learning opportunities and Forest School provision.
• Additional ICT equipment and subscriptions to online learning packages, including 'Accelerated Reader'.
• Language development resources including Speech Link and Language Link.
• Targeted tuition from an experienced qualified teacher.
• Social skills and support interventions, including Lego therapy. 

How will the impact of the spending of the Pupil Premium be measured?

 At Cranbrook CEP School, the usual cycle of data collection and the monitoring and tracking of attainment, will be used to inform progress and enable the early identification of need, support and appropriate intervention.

We have planned our spending carefully to ensure that it has been spent to maximum effect. This has meant making informed decisions about our spending such as:

• Ensuring that spending is directly linked to gaps in attainment.
• Making use of our own data to expand existing interventions.
• Ensuring there is at least good teaching.
• Making use of research when evaluating interventions and considering the implementation of new interventions.
• All staff know who their focus children are. Teachers will mentor pupil premium children in their class on a weekly basis.
• Three times a year pupil views, teacher views and data is gathered to consider the impact of the interventions and future support that may be needed.
• Pupil progress is further scrutinised at pupil progress meetings six times a year. Progress of these pupils is compared to progress of all pupils.
• Funding is used to benefit all pupil premium children and supports higher as well as lower ability children by extending provision on offer.
• We have revised our assessment and monitoring systems to support improvement in the quality of teaching and interventions in order to maximise impact.

Where will the funding be used in the 2023-2024 academic year?

Click on the link below to see how we plan to spend our pupil premium funding over the next academic year.

Pupil Premium Strategy for 2023-24

What has been the impact of the Pupil Premium Funding over the past academic year?

Click on the link below to look at how we are closing the gaps between pupil premium children and their peers.

Pupil Premium Strategy for 2022-23

Pupil Premium Strategy for 2021-22

When is our Pupil Premium strategy reviewed?

Our pupil premium strategy will be reviewed in July every year, with a mid-year budget review in February.