Pupil Premium

Pupil Premium Funding 

The pupil premium is additional funding given to publicly funded schools in England to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils and close the gap between them and their peers.  

You can find more information from the Department for Education here: DFE Pupil Premium guidance 

The Secretary of State for Education lays down terms and conditions on which assistance is given in relation to the pupil premium grant (PPG) payable to schools and local authorities. 

Pupil premium is funding to improve education outcomes for disadvantaged pupils in schools in England. National 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. 

At Brownmead Primary Academy we use this money very carefully to target provision for children who are not progressing as well as their peers as a result of this disadvantage. 

Brownmead’s approach to pupil premium. 

At Brownmead Primary Academy, we aim to ensure that children receive a wide range of opportunities, regardless of their background, and strive to ensure that children from disadvantaged backgrounds are given support to enable them to close attainment gaps with other children nationally. We aim to identify barriers to learning and remove them or minimise the impact they have on children’s learning and wellbeing. 

Barriers to learning: 

We have identified the following as the most significant and prevalent barriers to learning for PPE children: 

• Low prior attainment, relative to non-PPE children. 

• Low early language and speech. 

• A lack of opportunities to support learning in the home environment. 

• A range of difficult circumstances, either historical or current, leading to different issues, including emotional concerns and poor mental health. 

• A lack of opportunities to gain a wide range of life experiences. 

• Social and emotional issues resulting in low confidence and self-esteem. 

• Attendance: Some children’s attendance is low which will impact on their learning. 

• Trauma and other mental health issues in the family and/or child. 

• Special educational needs and disabilities. 

Nature of Support: 

We track all children’s academic performance, barriers to learning and physical and emotional needs. We also identify any aspects of trauma history which may affect them now or in the future.  This along with close partnership with parents enables us to be in a good position to offer support to all children when it is needed. 

We run programmes through our PSHE curriculum to help build children emotional resilience. Staff are trained on areas such as inclusive practices in teaching, compassionate approaches to the management of behaviour and the detailed understanding of attachment difficulties.  As a school we prioritise the positive mental health and wellbeing of our children and as a Thrive School, social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) is a whole school focus. 

We have an ethos of looking beyond the behaviour in order to identify support. We recognise that without the emotional and nurture support, children with additional needs do not perform well. It is through our approach that enables these children to perform as well as possible. 

We treat Pupil Premium as a vital part of our strategy to support vulnerable children and those with additional needs. 

We offer our children a range of specific support including: 

• High quality teaching through effective training for staff based on research models. 

• Additional proven interventions and strategies. 

• Read Write Inc Phonics approach to develop early phonics, reading and writing. 

• Wellcomm and Talk Boost approaches to develop early speech and language. 

• Emotional wellbeing support – we invest heavily in two Learning Mentors to support pupils and their family. 

• Rigorous support for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities with additional specialised staff. 

• We rigorously track the progress of these children and report on this to the Academy Advocates and the Executive Standards Committee of our Trust.