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Exceptional Education at the Heart of the Community

Exceptional Education at the Heart of the Community

Pupil Premium

Background - What is Pupil Premium?

The Government believes that the Pupil Premium, which is additional to main Academy funding, is the best way to address the current underlying inequalities between children eligible for free school meals {FSM} and their wealthier peers by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the pupils who need it most.

The Pupil Premium is allocated to children from low-income families who are currently known to be eligible for FSM in both mainstream and non-mainstream settings and children who have been looked after continuously for more than six months.

The Government decided that eligibility for the Pupil Premium in 2012-13 would be extended to pupils who have been elgible for free school meals {FSM} at any point in the last 6 years.  As a group nationally, children who have been eligible for FSM at any point in time have consistently lower educational attainment  than those who have never been eligible for FSM.

A premium has also been introduced for children whose parents are currently serving in the armed forces.

Pupil Premium is spent within the context of the overall funding agreement between the DfE and Oasis Community Learning.

Objectives of PP spend:

Accelerate progress from low starting points to close the gap for disadvantaged and vulnerable learners towards national expectations by:

  • Supporting children to develop their communication skills in English
  • Promoting children’s self esteem, self confidence and wellbeing
  • Improving behaviour for safety
  • Providing support for children to access the curriculum
  • Improving attendance
  • Developing relationships with parents

The ambition of our Academy is that all children have equal opportunity to develop the communication skills, social skills and emotional resilience that enables them to thrive and be successful.   We aim to support all our children to make good progress from their individual starting points. 

At Oasis Academy Fir Vale 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.

Key Principles

By following the key principles below, we believe we can maximise the impact of our pupil premium spending.

Learning ‘can do’ culture

  • Staff believe in all children
  • There are ‘no excuses’ made for underperformance
  • Children are taught ‘learning skills’ including team work, perseverance, independence

Data analysis and identification of children

  • The staff team will be involved in analysing progress and attainment data for their class so they are aware of the strengths, gaps and next steps
  • We use research (eg, Sutton Trust Toolkit) to support us in determining the strategies that will be most effective
  • All teaching and support staff will be aware of the children are who are in receipt of Pupil Premium funding
  • Underachievement at all levels will be targeted (not just lower attaining pupils)
  • Children’s individual needs are considered carefully so that we provide support for those children who could be doing “even better if…”

Improving the quality of teaching

  • Coaching, modelling and supported planning time
  • First hand experiences to ‘hook’ children’s interests and support language development
  • New planning and assessment procedures including marking, feedback and response
  • Sharing good practice
  • Moderation of assessment judgements as a staff team

Increasing Learning Time

  • Improving attendance and punctuality
  • Providing earlier intervention eg, language intervention in Reception and Y1
  • Providing behaviour strategies

Individualised Support

  • Looking at the needs of the individual child and identifying barriers to learning
  • Ensuring additional support staff and class teachers communicate regularly
  • Providing high quality interventions tailored to need
  • Working with other agencies to bring in additional expertise

Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting

  • A school wide monitoring and evaluation schedule that includes a range of evidence including child voice
  • Analysis of attainment and progress data
  • Regular feedback for children, parents, staff
  • Interventions are adapted or changed if they are not working
  • Case studies are used to evaluate the impact of pastoral interventions
  • A designated member of the academy leadership team maintains an overview of pupil premium spending

The principal, alongside the Regional Director will consider the information provided and will ensure that there is an annual statement to the parents on the academy website outlining how the pupil premium funding has been used to diminish the difference between pupils eligible for pupil premium and those who are not.