The Pupil Premium is grant funding and is in addition to the school’s delegated budget.  It was created by the government to address the inequalities between pupils. It is allocated according to the number of children on roll who are eligible for free school meals at any time in the last six years, who have been Looked After for more than six months, who are adopted or who have a parent in one of the armed forces.

The school makes the decision as to how the Pupil Premium is spent.  Pupil Premium funding is used to raise attainment as well as promoting social skills, independent learning and positive behaviour.

At West Leigh Junior School we believe that every child should be supported to succeed and we use the Pupil Premium funding to achieve this.

Our Pupil Premium funding is used in a variety of ways to support children. All of the strategies selected are firmly rooted in evidence and research.

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Quality First Teaching

A significant portion of our Pupil Premium funding is used to improve all classroom teaching, as evidence shows that high-quality, inclusive teaching is the most effective way to narrow the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils. This universal approach benefits all pupils, but disproportionately helps disadvantaged students, closing gaps from the start.

This includes teacher development, inclusive practices and high expectations.

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Targeted Academic Support

Inclusive, tailored support, that goes beyond classroom teaching, offers focused support for specific learning gaps. Examples of interventions at West Leigh include use of programmes with proven success, such as Nessy and SNIP spelling; focused phonics groups to target gaps in reading and use of our maths and English leads to deliver targeted interventions.

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Wider Strategies

We also use the Pupil Premium funding to target non-academic barriers to learning, such as poor attendance and social/emotional difficulties.

We have used our funding to train one of our LSAs as an ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support Assistant). They can support our children’s emotional development and help them cope with life’s challenges. ELSAs also help children and young people to find solutions to problems they might have.

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Cultural Capital

Cultural capital is the knowledge, skills, language, behaviours, and experiences that help people navigate education and society successfully, such as familiarity with books, cultural experiences, and ways of communicating that are often valued in schools.

Building cultural capital is important for pupil premium children because it helps close opportunity gaps by giving them the knowledge, experiences and confidence needed to succeed academically and feel they belong in wider society.

Some of the amazing opportunities our Pupil Premium children have taken part or will be taking part in this year include:

• Visit to the English National Opera

• Garons Wellbeing Space – Connecting Young Minds with Nature

• Waterstones book store to select books for the school and inspire a love of reading

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Bespoke Support

We are always here to provide tailored financial support to ensure that any families that are struggling financially do not feel any additional burden from the school. We have used Pupil Premium funding to support parents with trip and residential payments, attendance at Breakfast or After School Clubs, extra-curricular activities and uniform. Our door is always open – please come and see us if you wish to discuss this further.

 

Please download our Pupil Premium Strategy statement to see how our budget has been allocated for this year.