The Government believes that the Pupil Premium Grant, 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 peers by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the pupils who need it most.

The Government introduced the Pupil Premium in April 2011, as a means of addressing underlying inequalities between children from low income families who are eligible for free school meals (FSM) and their wealthier peers, by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the pupils who need it most. There are the categories of pupils that are eligible:

• Children who are either currently eligible for FSM or have been eligible for FSM in the past six years;

• Children who have been looked after by a local authority (in care) continuously for more than six months;

• Children who have been adopted from care

• Children of Armed Forces Personnel

Pupil Premium is expected to improve the outcomes and participation of FSMs children by closing the attainment gap and accelerating the progress being made by this vulnerable group. The Government decided that it is up to schools to decide how the Pupil Premium is spent, since they are best placed to assess what additional provision should be made for the individual pupils within their responsibility. Schools are accountable for how they have used the funding to support pupils from low-income families and are required to publish this information on-line.

Several of our families already claim for FSM but we know that there are many more of you who are entitled to this funding but due to a variety of reasons have not yet accessed it. We would encourage you to do so even if your child would prefer not to have a school lunch. Once registered, we will be able to inform you of other benefits and schemes that become available to you as a result. If you think that you are eligible for FSM then please speak to the school office.

We use a combination of approaches in our Pupil Premium Strategy. Our approaches range from whole class strategies to bespoke 1:1 interventions. The Strategy Statement below details these approaches and the budgeted cost along with our intended outcomes.