What is the Pupil Premium Fund?
The pupil premium is additional funding for publicly funded schools in England to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils of all abilities and to close the gaps between them and their peers.
Uphall Primary School is a five form entry school in Redbridge. We have a Nursery and provide extended provision. 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, and we are determined to ensure that our children are given every chance to realise their full potential. We passionately believe that any one of us is capable of anything we set our mind to! Pupil premium funding represents an important proportion of our budget and we are committed to ensuring it is spent to maximum effect.
We are determined to create a climate that does not limit a child’s potential in any way, but instead promotes limitless aspirations.
main Challenges
Below we detail the key challenges to achievement that we have identified among our disadvantaged pupils.
- Ensuring that Pupil premium children in every year group have access to additional teacher groups/high quality teachers to meet their learning needs throughout the academic year.
- The disadvantaged pupils need a high degree of emotional, wellbeing and pastoral support in order to remove the barriers to achieving their full potential.
- Improve further the teaching and provision of reading.
- Improve parental engagement: Monitor and maintain high levels of attendance and punctuality of disadvantaged pupils.
- Provision of additional teaching and learning capacity for disadvantaged and vulnerable pupils.
- The poverty gap for these families has widened and they are facing further hardship as a result of the current economic situation which has had an impact upon the mental health and wellbeing of these learners as well as their physical wellbeing.
Funding received
Funding Period | Total Funding Received | Funding Per Pupil | Total Number of Pupils | Number of Eligible Pupils |
---|---|---|---|---|
2019-20 | £245,520 | £1,320 | 1041 (YN-Y6) | 186 (18%) |
2020-21 | £209.820 | £1,345 | 968 (YN-Y6) | 156 (16.1%) |
2021-22 | £197,715 | £1,345 | 936 (YR-Y6) | 147 (15.71%) |
2022-23 | £203,595 | £1,241 | 934 (YR-Y6) | 164 (17.5%) |
Objectives of the Pupil Premium
When making decisions about using pupil premium funding it is important to consider the context of the school and the subsequent challenges faced. Common barriers for FSM children can be that they are less supported at home, weak language and communication skills, lack of confidence, more frequent behaviour difficulties, and attendance and punctuality issues. There may also be complex family situations that prevent children from flourishing. The challenges are varied and there is no “one size fits all”.
Our key objective in using the Pupil Premium Grant is to narrow the gap between pupil groups but also to ensure that all children are high attaining.
As a school we are developing an excellent track record of ensuring that pupils make good/outstanding progress, but historically levels of attainment have been lower for FSM (eligible for free school meals) – this is also a national trend. Through targeted interventions we are working to eliminate barriers to learning and progress. For children who start school with low attainment on entry, our aim is to ensure that they make accelerated progress in order to reach age related expectations and above as they move through the school.
We have analysed our data thoroughly and have made use of a range of research, such as, good practice in using pupil premium funding, the Sutton trust research on within school variance and the Sutton Trust toolkit, to inform our decision-making. In addition to this we have identified some key principles (outlined below) which we believe will maximise the impact of our pupil premium spending.
Key Principles
Analysing Data
We will ensure that:
• All staff are involved in the analysis of data and attend regular pupil progress meetings so that they are fully aware of strengths and weaknesses across the school.
• We use research (such as the Sutton Trust Toolkit) to support us in determining the strategies that will be most effective.
Identification of Children
We will ensure that:
• ALL teaching staff and support staff are involved in analysis of data and identification of children.
• ALL staff are aware of who pupil premium and vulnerable children are
• ALL pupil premium children benefit from the funding, not just those who are underperforming.
• Underachievement at all levels is 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 Day to Day Teaching
We will continue to ensure that all children across the school receive good teaching, with increasing percentages of excellent teaching achieved by using our team leaders to:
• Set high expectations
• Address any within-school variance
• Ensure consistent implementation of the non-negotiables, e.g. marking and guided reading
• Share good practice within the school and draw on external expertise
• Provide high quality CPD
• Improve assessment through joint levelling and moderation
• Develop a deeper understanding of Assessment for Learning (AfL), Dialogic Teaching and Metacognition.
Increasing learning time
We will maximise the time children have to “catch up” through:
• Improving attendance and punctuality
• Providing earlier intervention (KS1 and EYFS)
• Extended learning out of school hours.
Going the Extra Mile
In our determination to ensure that ALL children succeed we recognise the need for and are committed to providing completely individualised interventions for set periods of time to support children in times of additional and exceptional need.
For more detailed information regarding plans for the upcoming year and last years spending, please see the downloadable file at the top of this page.