Pupil Premium 21/22 - Gray's Farm Primary Academy

Pupil Premium 21/22

What is Pupil Premium?

Pupil Premium is an allocation of funding that is given to us by the government to support children who may be vulnerable to under-achievement. The amount we receive is based on the number of children that we have who are entitled to Free School Meals (FSM) or who are ‘Children in Care’ (CIC). We receive the equivalent of £1345 for every child who is currently in receipt of Free School Meals plus some additional funding that is based on the number of children who have had Free School Meals in the past 6 years but are no longer eligible. As a school, we have a responsibility to report on the progress of children receiving pupil premium; demonstrate how we are using the Pupil Premium Grant (PPG) and the impact that it is having on children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

How much Pupil Premium Money do we get?

In the academic year 2021/2022 our Pupil Premium Funding will be approximately £221,325  (this figure includes £19,575 from the Recovery Premium funding allocation).

What do we use this money for?

At Gray's Farm, pupil premium money is used to fund some important roles within our school. These roles are all predominantly focused on raising academic standards especially in Reading, Writing and Mathematics, whilst also supporting children’s emotional and behavioural needs to enable them to learn more effectively. Our ultimate aim for the spending of this money is to prepare our children for the real world and offer them valuable learning experiences that will facilitate their learning and shape them into well-rounded individuals. This year we have written a long-term strategy that considers the outcomes we want to achieve over the next three years; ensuring that the long term impact of COVID restrictions is addressed and that the gap between disadvantaged children and their non-disadvantaged peers can continue to diminish. Within this strategy we have identified three key areas to focus on to ensure the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers continues to close and barriers to educational achievement are overcome. These are:

1]  Driving Attainment

Planning and providing a recovery curriculum that that raises academic standards; is diverse and representative of all; addresses health and wellbeing issues heightened during the pandemic and reduces the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers, One that enables us to diminish the gap and repair the long-term AND on-going impact of lost learning time (both academic and social) during school closures/on-line learning caused by COVID restrictions. Heavily embedded within this focus area, is the enhancement and implementation of early intervention; providing tailored support to identified groups through regular, focused programmes/schemes in all key stages, particularly EYFS.

2]  Building Relationships and Overcoming Barriers 

This area allows us to continue to provide support to families to improve the overall attendance of all children and their readiness to learn, whilst reducing the attendance gap between disadvantaged children and their peers. It allows us to provide support to families and students with educational and non-educational needs, through both internal and external support networks. This year, the introduction of ACE (A Champion for Every Child Programme) aims to significantly reduce (and where possible) remove the barriers to learning for disadvantaged children across all key stages so that they can meet their full potential. ACE is a whole school strategy which allocates a champion for all disadvantaged pupils and their families so that they have regular access to 1:1 sessions with their ACE Tutor - resulting in the building of relationships between school and home, which in turn can act to counter any barriers to learning that students may have.

3] Broadening Horizons

To provide opportunities to further enhance our children’s emotional happiness and cultural capital. This includes the continual development of the wider curriculum; embedding a broader curriculum that engages the children; challenges stereotypes through representation and provides opportunities for cross curricular learning that is built on as the children move up through the school. In an attempt to offer memorable experiences outside the classroom environment, we are continuing to allocate some of our Pupil Premium Grant to enhance the ‘Let’s Get…’ range at Gray’s Farm. This year, a particular emphasis has been placed on developing the children’s ability to make healthy, informed choices whilst encouraging wholesome lifestyles through Let’s Get Cooking. All children in years 4-6 will have planned sessions with the kitchen staff; learning how to prepare and cook budget-friendly, healthy meals that can feed the whole family, whilst being introduced to a potentially new pallet of foods. 

Our detailed Pupil Premium Strategy for the 2021/22 academic year can be found here.

How will this money be spent?

Pp proposedspend2122

Pp proposedspend2122pie

To see our pupil premium strategy for the 2020-2021 academic year, please CLICK HERE

Impact: How is The Pupil Premium helping?

For an in-depth look at the 2020/21 RAG rated strategy, please click here

Review of outcomes in the previous academic year

Pupil premium strategy outcomes

This details the impact that our pupil premium activity had on pupils in the 2020 to 2021 academic year.

  • COVID closures unfortunately impacted our ability to fully implement all planned interventions and initiatives (this is reflected in the RAG Rating process). During these closures, the school continued to support children entitled to the Pupil Premium Grant on-line with live lessons and teaching delivered every day for all year groups via Google Classroom. Although a good package of on-line learning was provided, the attendance of disadvantaged children did initially drop during school lockdowns - in an attempt to keep children learning, devices were provided and frequent contact was made to get as many disadvantaged children on-line as possible. 

    Our internal assessment data for 2020/21 suggests that the performance of disadvantaged pupils was lower than in previous years in all areas of the core curriculum. Although COVID restrictions did have an impact on the normal running of the school year; the remote learning offer that we provided, meant that we were still able to provide our children with a good level of education, not just in the core subjects but in the wider curriculum; ensuring that they received immediate feedback on their learning; had daily conversations with their normal teachers and that progression could still be made. So much so, that in a year with so many restrictions, interruptions and uncertainty, 73% of our disadvantaged children achieved ARE in Reading and 77% of our disadvantaged children achieved ARE in Writing and Maths at the end of KS2. 

    During remote learning, devices were sent out to 43 disadvantaged families that did not have access to a device at the start of January’s lockdown - this meant that by week 5 of on-line learning more than 80% of our disadvantaged children were accessing on-line learning in 7/12 classes (6 out of these classes have greater than 85% of their PP children accessing on-line learning). For any children not accessing the learning on-line, places were offered in school as part of the key-worker provision and for any families not engaging with on-line learning, regular contact was maintained and every opportunity was taken to ensure these children could continue to learn - in some extreme cases, paper copies of work were distributed and such children were identified and focused on upon return to school with additional interventions being put in place to ensure the gap between them and their peers did not continue to increase. Engagement in Reception classes particularly during on-line learning was less than in other year groups - this and as a result of the lower number of children achieving GLD at the end of EYFS, immediate intervention was put into place, with continuous provision continuing into year 1 for the autumn term of 2021/22 to ensure gaps in learning could be plugged. Extensive monitoring of this CP has shown that it has already had a positive impact on the children’s development with accelerated progression being noted in both classes.  

    (COVID restrictions allowing) We will endeavour throughout the 2021/2022 academic year to diminish the difference by providing a diverse, ambitious curriculum that raises academic standards in Reading, Writing and Maths; addresses on-going health and wellbeing issues heightened during the pandemic; and reduces the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers. Prior to the disturbances of COVID, as a school, our historical data showed that we were on an upward trajectory in Reading, writing and maths with more disadvantaged children achieving ARE year-on-year (in some subjects with more than 80% of our disadvantaged children achieving ARE). To continue with this upward trend and to minimise the gap between disadvantaged children and their non-disadvantaged peers, this plan was written with a three year focus in mind; planned strategies within our three identified areas that have been recorded will be regularly reviewed and targeted within the 2021/2022 strategy to ensure that we remain on track to meet the ambitious targets that have we set ourselves

When will this Pupil Premium Strategy be reviewed? 

This year’s Pupil Premium Strategy will be reviewed at the end of each whole term, considering available data and reflecting on the impact, effect and success to that date of each planned strategy. Based on such reflection, the strategy will be adapted to ensure the grant has maximum impact and continues to alleviate the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers. At the end of the academic year, the Whole Pupil Premium Strategy will be reviewed and shared with wider audiences (October 2022).