PUPIL PREMIUM - including recovery premium

What is Pupil Premium?

Pupil Premium was introduced by the Government in 2011-2012 as an additional contribution to main school funding in order to:

'Address the current underlying inequalities between children who are eligible for free school meals (FSM) and their peers, by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the chpupils who need it most.' DfE April 2012

Pupil Premium is allocated to children from low-income families who have been eligible for free school meals (FSM) and children who have been Looked After continuously for more than six months at any time over the last 6 years. 

How to apply:

We encourage parents to apply for this benefit even if their child receives Universal Free School Meals whci are available for Reception and KS1 children; failure to apply results in less funding for school.  To find out more about the criteria and for details of how to apply please visit Lancashire County Council Website:

https://www.lancashire.gov.uk/children-education-families/schools/free-school-meals/pupil-premium/

How do we spend the money at St Thomas'? 

The pupil premium has the potential to have a great impact on the attainment and future life chances of pupils.

Schools are able to decide how the Pupil Premium is best spent to maximise impact.  In order to utilise the funding well we continually research and review the best ways to maximise the use of the Pupil Premium funding, and currently base most of our spending around recommendations in the Education Endowment Foundation Toolkit.

Some of the ways we use the Pupil Premium Funding are listed below:

• Our Inclusion Lead and Pastoral Support Assistant support families and work with outside agencies such as counselling services and Children’s Social Care (CSC) and deliver targeted intervention to identified children

• A high focus on improving attendance, supported by the Inclusion Lead and Pastoral Support Assistant

• Teaching assistants employed to deliver personalised, targeted support such as: assessment and delivery of  the Wellcomm programme, Talkboost, reading and phonics support  

• Specialist teacher input and training for staff

• Nessy literacy intervention package

• Provision of nurture groups through the employment of a Pastoral Support Assistant

• Enabling pupils to participate in school residential and educational visits through the provision of some financial support

• Delivery of the Kidsafe programme to classes

• Provision of daily toast/milk

How do we check the impact of our Pupil Premium spending?

As a school, we track all groups of pupils to ensure that they make good or better progress. Through targeted interventions we work to eliminate barriers to learning and progress. For new entrants who start with low attainment, our aim is to ensure that they make accelerated progress in order to reach age related expectations as they move through the school. We closely monitor how we spend the allocated funds to ensure they are having an impact on achievement and progress through tracking and our termly Pupil Progress meetings. 

Click here to see our Pupil Premium Strategy Statement 2023-2026