The Government believes that the Pupil Premium, which is additional to main school funding, is the best way to address the current underlying inequalities between children eligible for free school meals (FSM) and their more advantaged peers by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the pupils who need it most. Our school data is positive for outcomes for Pupil Premium pupils but we continue to build on this to diminish the difference between Pupil Premium pupils in the school and all pupils nationally. It is for schools to decide how the Pupil Premium, allocated to schools per FSM pupil, is spent, since they are best placed to assess what additional provision should be made for the individual pupils within their responsibility. However, they will be held accountable for how they have used the additional funding to support pupils from low income families.

From September 2016, schools have been required to publish a Pupil Premium Strategy. This will ensure that parents are fully informed about the amount of allocation, barriers faced by eligible pupils, how the funding is to be spent, how we will measure impact and the date the strategy will be reviewed. We also need to include how the allocation was spent for the previous year and its impact on eligible and other pupils.

Our key objective in using the Pupil Premium Grant is to diminish the differences between pupil groups. As a school we consistently track all groups of pupils to ensure that they make good or better progress. Through targeted teaching and interventions, we are working to eliminate barriers to learning and progress. For new entrants that start with low attainment on entry, our aim is to ensure that they make accelerated progress in order to reach age related expectations as they move through the school. Once at age related expectations we always continue to extend that learning further to ensure that they reach their highest levels of attainment. We closely monitor how we are spending the allocated funds to ensure they are having an impact on pupil premium pupil’s achievement. We also continue to focus on more-able Pupil Premium pupils to ensure they are not an underachieving group. As part of our overall strategy to ensure that our Pupil Premium children are not disadvantaged compared to their peers, we allocate a large proportion of our funding to enrichment programmes designed to further develop confidence and skills for our pupils to succeed in all areas of the curriculum and society.

At Forty Hill, we deploy a Pupil Premium Strategy that not only seeks to support and benefit our children eligible for the Pupil Premium funding, but also a whole school approach to this strategy, aiming to ensure all of our children make good progress from their starting points. We are proud of this ethos and aim to utilise the small amount of pupil premium funding to support our wider school aim of inclusivity and giving every child the opportunity to flourish, learn and live in Faith, Hope and Service.

Jesus said 'As I have loved you, you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples.' John 13:34-35