Pupil Premium Spending Rationale
 

What is the Pupil Premium Grant?

The Pupil Premium Grant is allocated to children from low-income families who are, or have been, eligible for free school meals (FSM), within the last six years. The grant is also made available to support children of service personnel and those who are looked after by the local authority (LAC).

What are our aims for the Pupil Premium Grant?

The aim of the Pupil Premium is to identify and implement strategies that help to increase social mobility and reduce the attainment gap between the most and least disadvantaged pupils nationally. We have placed a strong emphasis on securing foundations in literacy and numeracy as we believe that our disadvantaged pupils require most support in these key areas. Furthermore, we believe that strong literacy and numeracy are crucial for preparing children for life beyond school.

Who benefits from the Pupil Premium Grant?

At Severn Vale School, we ensure that the Pupil Premium Grant has the most benefit for those with the greatest disadvantage. Our intention is to build capacity and maximise our impact. It is inevitable that some of the interventions put in place are shared by children who are not in receipt of Pupil Premium funding. We do this in order to promote good progress for all children.

What barriers do pupils eligible for the Pupil Premium Grant face?

The barriers and challenges disadvantaged pupils face are complex and varied - there is no single difficulty faced by all. However, we have identified several barriers that we believe are particularly relevant to our disadvantaged children. These are the key barriers we have identified (those denoted with a * are currently a priority for development post-pandemic):

• Attendance *
• Social emotional and learning behaviours *
• A lack of cultural capital / wider knowledge outside of the “taught curriculum”
• Not reading challenging texts
• Poorly developed independent study habits / skills
• Poorly developed homework habits / skills
• Numeracy
• Literacy
• Impact of Covid-19 – particularly exacerbating some/all of the above challenges

We allocate our Pupil Premium Grant to resources that aim to close the gaps in these areas.

How do we decide how to spend the Pupil Premium Grant?

In deciding how to use our Pupil Premium Grant, we draw upon the following sources:

• Sutton Trust report: “The Pupil Premium: Next Steps” available here.
• Education Endowment Foundation Teaching and Learning Toolkit, available here.
• Research on disadvantaged pupils and the vocabulary gap, available here.
• UCL work/research on literacy in the curriculum
• National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) – how background factors link to KS4 outcome
• NFER – Recovering from Covid – what pupils and schools need now
• NFER – A brighter future: The impact of D of E on young people’s mental health and well being
• Our combined professional experience of what works best

From these sources and in line with the recent Education Endowment Foundation Guide to the Pupil Premium, we have adopted a tiered approach to our Pupil Premium Strategy. This means our spending is focused on 3 areas:

1 – Developing teaching

• Additional teachers in the core subjects to enable smaller teaching groups at KS4
• Appointment of Lead Practitioners in Maths and Science to help further develop the pedagogical skills of teachers within these departments
• Use of R&Rs and TLRs to aid in the retention of high-quality teachers
• Continuing development of Prep in order to:
  • (KS3) – Develp literacy and cultural capital of all students via exposure to, and involvement with, high level reading text during guided reading
  • (KS4) – Daily pportunity to use taught study skills in order to engage with homework and/or useful revision
• Professional development

2 – Targeted academic support

• Core subject intervention
• KS3 Academic progress team
• External and internal assessments to identify progress and/or gaps in learning

3 – Wider Strategies

• Development of targeted use of the school’s Attendance Improvement Team
• Introduction and development of a redesigned inclusion offer and team including focus on SEMH and accompanying mental health support, family support and counselling services
• Line Up – Ensuring a calm, systematic and consistent start to the day for all pupils to provide greater foundation for behaviour and attitudinal expectations
•  ‘Get it ready’ and ‘Get it done’ homework and tutoring support
• Hardship Fund (uniform; DT Food; Curriculum and Revision materials)
• Targeted use of the school’s Careers Support staff
• Music tuition support
• Duke of Edinburgh’s Award

To read our Pupil Premium Strategy Statement, please follow this link: Pupil Premium Statement 2023-24