Pupil Premium – Ecclesall Primary School

Pupil premium is funding to improve education outcomes for disadvantaged pupils in schools in England. Evidence shows that disadvantaged children generally face additional challenges in reaching their potential at school and often do not perform as well as other pupils.

Pupil eligibility and funding rates 2022 to 2023

This table shows how pupil premium funding is allocated to schools and local authorities. Allocations are provided on a financial year basis, based on pupil eligibility rates.

Pupil eligibility criteria	Amount of funding for each primary-aged pupil per year	Amount of funding for each secondary-aged pupil per year	Funding is paid to
Pupils who are eligible for free school meals, or have been eligible in the past 6 years (including eligible children of families with no recourse to public funds)	£1,385	£985	School
Pupils who have been adopted from care or have left care	£2,410	£2,410	School
Children who are looked after by the local authority	£2,410	£2,410	Local authority

We have permanently extended free school meal eligibility to include children in all households with no recourse to public funds (NRPF). The guidance on Providing free school meals to families with NRPF includes:

a new claims form for schools to complete
eligibility criteria
income thresholds
details on claiming additional pupil premium

Pupil eligibility and funding rates 2023 to 2024

The pupil premium rates will be for the 2023 to 2024 financial year, starting on 1 April 2023 are given in the table.

Pupil eligibility criteria	Amount of funding for each primary-aged pupil per year	Amount of funding for each secondary-aged pupil per year	Funding is paid to
Pupils who are eligible for free school meals, or have been eligible in the past 6 years (including eligible children of families with no recourse to public funds)	£1,455	£1,035	School
Pupils who have been adopted from care or have left care	£2,530	£2,530	School
Children who are looked after by the local authority	£2,530	£2,530	Local authority

From 1 April 2023, pupil premium eligibility for pupils who have been adopted from care or have left care will include children adopted from outside of England and Wales.

Eligible schools

The following types of school are eligible to receive an allocation from the pupil premium.

Local-authority-maintained schools

This includes:

mainstream infant, primary, middle, junior, secondary and all-through schools serving children aged 5 to 16
schools for children with special educational needs or disabilities
pupil referral units (PRUs), for children who do not go to a mainstream school

Academies, free schools and non-maintained special schools

This includes:

mainstream academies serving pupils aged 5 to 16
academies and non-maintained special schools for children with special educational needs or disabilities
alternative provision (AP) academies, for children who do not go to a mainstream school

Pupil premium funding is also provided to local authorities for eligible pupils in independent special schools, where the local authority pays full tuition fees.

Service pupil premium (SPP)

Service pupil premium is additional funding for schools, but it is not based on disadvantage. It has been combined into pupil premium payments to make it easier for schools to manage their spending.

Pupils in state-funded schools in England attract service pupil premium funding, at the rate of £320 per eligible pupil in 2022 to 2023, and £335 per eligible pupil in 2023 to 2024, if they meet one or more of the following criteria:

one of their parents is serving in the regular armed forces (including pupils with a parent who is on full commitment as part of the full-time reserve service, and also pupils whose parent is serving in the armed forces of another nation and is formally stationed in England) – and they are recorded in the October school census as being a ‘service child’
they have previously been registered as a ‘service child’ in any school census in the last 6 years
one of their parents died while serving in the armed forces, and the pupil receives a pension under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme or the War Pensions Scheme

This funding is primarily to help with pastoral support. It can also be used to help improve the academic progress of eligible pupils if the school deems this to be a priority.

Use of the pupil premium

Funding paid to schools

School leaders can decide on which activity to spend their pupil premium (and recovery premium) within the framework set out by the ‘menu of approaches’. This can be found on page 7 of ‘Using pupil premium: guidance for school leaders’.

The menu is designed to help schools use their funding effectively to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils.

The format of the menu reflects evidence suggesting that pupil premium spending is most effective when used across 3 areas:

high-quality teaching, such as staff professional development
targeted academic support, such as tutoring
wider strategies to address non-academic barriers to success in schools, such as attendance, behaviour, and social and emotional support

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) recommends that schools particularly focus their pupil premium on supporting high-quality teaching.

Pupil premium is not a personal budget for individual pupils, and schools are not required to spend all of their allocated grant on eligible pupils (see ‘Non-eligible pupils’).

Funding paid to local authorities for looked-after children

Virtual school heads are responsible for managing the funding given to local authorities for the children in their care. They work with schools to ensure the funding is used to help deliver the outcomes identified in the children’s personal education plans.

They can pass all the funding on to schools or retain some to fund activities that will benefit a group of or all the authority’s looked-after children.

Further information about virtual school heads’ responsibilities for using pupil premium is available.

Non-eligible pupils

Schools do not have to spend pupil premium so it solely benefits eligible pupils. They can use it wherever they identify the greatest need. For example, they might spend it on pupils who do not get free school meals but:

have or have had a social worker
act as a carer

Using pupil premium funding to improve teaching quality is the most effective way to improve outcomes for disadvantaged pupils. By doing so, schools will inevitably benefit non-eligible pupils as well.

Academically able pupils

Pupil premium funding is not allocated based on academic ability. Schools and local authorities will receive funding based on all of the children who are eligible.

Evidence shows that academically able pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds are most at risk of under-performing. These pupils should receive just as much focus as less academically able pupils.

Accountability

Schools must show how they’re using their pupil premium funding:

by publishing a statement on their website about how they use it and the impact it has on the attainment of disadvantaged pupils
through inspections by Ofsted
through published performance tables

Virtual school heads demonstrate to Ofsted how they’re managing pupil premium for looked-after children in their virtual school annual report.

Further information

For more information, read:

the guidance for school leaders on using pupil premium
the Education Endowment Foundation’s guide to using pupil premium
the allocations and conditions of grant, which shows:
- the funding given to each school
- the totals at national, local authority and parliamentary constituency level
- how pupil premium funding must be spent
- the payment timetable