The primary aim of the school is to ensure that all children are able to access all aspects of the school’s provision in order to achieve the highest standards of achievement and the greatest possible progress, in relation to children’s individual starting points.
The Pupil Premium is funding provided to schools, which is additional to main school funding. It is allocated according to the number of pupil’s on-roll who are eligible for free school meals (FSM), a smaller amount allocated according to the number of children of service families, and an allocation for each pupil who has been ‘Looked After’, in the care of the Local Authority, now or in the past. In 2012, funding was extended to include pupils who have been eligible for free school meals within the past 6 years.
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 within their responsibility. However, schools are to be held accountable for how they have used the additional funding to support pupils from low-income families. From September 2012, this information must be published on the school website. Please see below for information regarding how the pupil premium was spent in the last financial year, the impact of this funding, and the plans for future spending.
Eastway’s Rationale for Pupil Premium Spending
Pupil Premium Strategy 2021/24
At Eastway we believe that no child should be disadvantaged. We are ambitious for all our pupils. We are satisfied that our pupils make good progress from their starting points and the gap between our own disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils is narrowing and in some year groups/ subjects, the difference has diminished. We regularly review our spending allocation and how we would ensure it has impact on outcomes. Last year we made a number of important changes to the way in which PP funding will be administered in order to maximize impact and increase accountability, we adopted a number of tracking systems and this has supported and informed the focus areas. The onus of accountability in measuring the impact of spending plans against external research (such as the EEF toolkit) and in monitoring the impact of spending on outcomes, lies with the headteacher. Our strategy is matched to the needs and barriers for the children and community of Eastway. We identify barriers to learning and ensure that the funding is allocated specifically to address the needs of our disadvantaged pupils. We included ways that we would address the difficulties faced during the COVID19 Pandemic and National Lockdown.
This strategy has been written to indicate how we:
- Aim to identify the needs of Pupil Premium children in our school, linked with any other vulnerabilities, and any barriers to their possible progress
- Intend to address these through specific, realistic targets with appropriate timescales,
- Will target funding in order to accomplish these targets for the benefit of all children as well as Pupil Premium.
- Ensure that high quality teaching provides appropriate support and challenge for disadvantaged pupils.
- Ensure that we achieve the most efficient use of resources and are able to respond to new challenges
- Provide appropriate training to teaching and support staff
- Continuously monitor progress against our set objectives
- Ultimately that we are able to significantly diminish the gap in terms of progress and achievement between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils in our school and in relation to pupils Locally and Nationally
- That we are seen to live our Mission Statement tagline by providing the very best opportunities for all our pupils
- How we use this funding alongside Catch Up Funding to provide targeted support and intervention for all our children
Bringing Learning to Life
So that ALL our children thrive and achieve their full potential.
