General Introduction:

This policy supports the work of the school in promoting its mission statement, aims and values.

 

Mission statement:

Like a lighthouse, St Michael’s is a beacon of safety and stability. It takes courage to learn and remember knowledge, develop new skills and allow your own light to shine in the world. We respect our differences and know that working peacefully together allows our lights to shine more brightly.

‘Let your light shine’  Matthew 5:16

 

School aims:

At St Michael’s we value every member of our school community and our aims are for every child, whatever their background or circumstances, to have the support they need to:

 

• Develop their understanding of the value of leading a healthy lifestyle.
• Work and play in a secure and safe environment in which they are encouraged to develop moral values and mutual respect.
• Experience an exciting curriculum which fosters their enthusiasm, develops an enquiring mind and enables every child to achieve his/her full potential.
• Access an education for life which promotes British Values that enable all learners to become effective and reliable members of the wider community.
• Foster ambition and expectation to carry through to adult life.

To achieve these aims all learners, staff, parents and governors will work together to promote our core values of peace, courage and respect.

 

Policy Aims:

At St Michael’s Church of England Primary School we believe that our children have an equal entitlement and should have equal opportunities to acquire skills, abilities and attributes and develop imagination, creativity and a love for learning.

The aim of this policy is to ensure that children from all backgrounds attain their full potential.

 

Background:

The school receives funding from the Government to support it in trying to meet this aim.  This is known as Pupil Premium.

 

Pupil Premium is additional funding, from the Government, provided to schools for the purpose of supporting specific groups of children to ensure they benefit from the same opportunities as all other children.  There are three categories of children who qualify for Pupil Premium:

• Children who are eligible (or have been eligible in the last 6 years (Ever 6 FSM)) for free school meals (FSM).
• Looked after children (LAC).
• Armed forces children.

It is for schools to decide how the Pupil Premium is spent, since they are best placed to assess what additional provision should be made for the individual pupils for whom they are responsible.

 

Principles:

• We seek to ensure that teaching and learning opportunities meet the needs of all pupils.
• We seek to ensure that appropriate provision is made for pupils who belong to vulnerable groups, including ensuring that the needs of socially disadvantaged pupils are adequately assessed and addressed.
• In making provision for socially disadvantaged pupils, we recognise that not all pupils who receive free school meals will be socially disadvantaged.
• We also recognise that not all pupils who are socially disadvantaged are registered or qualify for free school meals and therefore use Pupil Premium funding to support any pupil or group of pupils the school has identified as being in need of intervention and support.

 

Provision:

The funding is used to pay for additional teachers and teaching assistants to run catch-up intervention sessions in Key Stages 1 and 2 as well as providing for additional teachers in Year 5 and Year 6 to support literacy and numeracy.  This enables the school to better meet the learning needs of groups of learners and ensure more able pupil premium children are challenged to achieve their full potential.

 

Pupil Premium funding contributes to the cost of an EAL (English as an Additional Language) Co-ordinator and support assistant to benefit Pupil Premium children who speak English as an additional language, so that they can quickly begin to access all parts of the curriculum. 

 

Some of the Pupil Premium funding supports, in part, ‘Reading Plus’, which is an on-line programme designed to accelerate reading.  Up to 54 children can make use of this at a time.

 

The school also uses some of the Pupil Premium funding to staff support approaches to teaching such as precision teaching and turnabout.  These help children with special educational needs or children who are at risk of falling behind their peers in basic literacy and numeracy skills.

 

Some of the pupil premium funding is used to support families with uniform and the cost of musical instrumental tuition and clubs.

 

The provision this school provides benefits all children eligible for pupil premium, however, other children also benefit from the provision as the school considers making it available to them in no way detracts from the impact it can have on those pupils eligible for pupil premium.

 

Barriers to learning:

Many of our pupils have multiple barriers to learning.  Some of the more common barriers within the school are deprivation, lower prior attainment, special educational needs, English as an additional language and late arrival into the educational system.  The school assesses all children so that we are aware of individual barriers to learning and can put in place provision to help overcome them.

 

Reporting:

It will be the responsibility of the Head teacher, or the delegated member of staff, to report to the Governors on the progress made towards narrowing the gap, for socially disadvantaged pupils.

Parents of individual pupils will receive information about their child’s attainment and progress through parent consultations and written reports.  All parents and members of the general public will be reported to using the School’s website, where there is a summary of the provision and impact of Pupil Premium funding.

 

Evaluation:

The Governing Body will be responsible for evaluating the impact of the Pupil Premium funding on pupil outcomes and assessing how effective the School is in narrowing the gap for groups of pupils.

They will do this through their committees and at full governing body meetings.  

 

They will draw upon a range of data to do this, including visits to the school, through data collected by Governor Working Groups and by external evidence such as the RAGY reviews and data from DfE sign in Analyse School Performance.