Pupil Premium

At Lowton West, our aim is that all pupils, irrespective of their social or economic background or challenges they may face, should make good progress from their starting points and achieve high attainment across all aspects of the curriculum. Our vision is to enable all of our pupils to inspire, achieve and succeed; we will aim high and build dreams and futures together.

At the centre of our provision is high-quality teaching, as we believe this has the greatest impact on closing the disadvantage attainment gap, whilst benefitting all our pupils, including non-disadvantaged pupils in our school.

In making our decisions about the use of Pupil Premium funding, we have considered the context of our school community and the challenges faced and reflected on historical challenges and successes, using research conducted by EEF to support the decisions around the usefulness of different strategies and their value for money. We also recognise that the challenges facing our disadvantaged children are not generic, with some children having multiple vulnerabilities, therefore strategies must meet the needs of the individual children at our school.

Our ultimate objectives are:

• To narrow the attainment gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils.
• To deliver an ambitious and high quality curriculum, designed to maximise potential and provide opportunities for all pupils, particularly disadvantaged pupils, to build their cultural capital, giving all pupils access to a wide and rich set of memorable learning experiences.
• To maximise learning through providing high-quality teaching, using teaching approaches to ensure long-term retention of knowledge, fluency in key skills, and confident use of metacognitive strategies.
• To develop every child’s speech and language acquisition to ensure all our pupils can articulate and express their own thoughts and opinions by the time they leave our school.
• To ensure every child is a fluent reader with a well-developed vocabulary and good understanding, which they can in turn apply in their writing and enable them to access the breadth of the curriculum.
• To enable pupils to look after their social and emotional wellbeing and to develop resilience through consistently promoting and supporting the emotional well-being and personal development of disadvantaged pupils and those pupils identified by the school as vulnerable pupils.
• To promote excellent attendance and punctuality and reduce the percentage of persistent absenteeism.

We aim to do this through:

• Understanding the context of our families and the school community and focus on pupil needs, socially and emotionally and academically, through an individualised approach.
• Developing strong relationships with families, working with external agencies and the school’s Senior Leadership team, Attendance and Welfare Officer and Mental Health and Well-Being Practitioner to encourage excellent attendance and provide effective pastoral support.
• Targeting funding to ensure that all pupils have access to trips, extra-curricular opportunities, residentials and first-hand learning experiences.
• Prioritising the mental health and well-being of pupils through the training of all staff in attachment and early-life trauma, sensory processing, nurture and inclusion practices and key staff in mental first aid, in conjunction with the provision of high quality PSHE lessons.
• Using robust, diagnostic assessments, focused on pupil need, to provide a clear sequence of learning and tightly focused improvement priorities to adjust teaching responsively so that all children can build on their prior knowledge and skills, address gaps in learning and make accelerated progress in knowing more and remembering more.
• Providing targeted intervention and support to quickly address identified gaps in learning including the use of small group work, 1:1 tuition.
• Improving the quality of teaching and learning, through evidence based high quality, whole school CPD, to ensure that pupils access effective quality first teaching.
• Promoting high quality reading experiences for all. Accurately assessing children’s attainment to identify next steps and increasing opportunities for reading and pupil discussion to develop fluency, vocabulary and the acquisition of speech and language. School will provide a high quality systematic synthetic phonics approach, using the Read Write Inc programme and promote reading for pleasure across all year groups.

Free School Meals and Pupil Premium

What is the pupil premium?

The pupil premium is extra funding for your child’s education. It is provided by the government and is normally claimed as part of free school meals, if you or your partner are in receipt of one of the qualifying benefits.

School will receive pupil premium funding for six years to support your child’s education including help with the cost of school trips, additional teaching and

KS1 – Reception, Years 1 and 2

Non-means tested free school meals have been available to children in Reception, Year 1, and Year 2 since September 2014. This came into place under the Children and Families Act. Currently, all KS1 pupils in state-funded schools are entitled to a free, healthy lunch regardless of their family income.

If your child is in Reception, Year 1 or Year 2 and you or your partner are in receipt of qualifying benefits, you should still complete the application for pupil premium online as school will receive an extra £1,345 per year.

 KS2 – Year 3 to Year 6

Your child is eligible for free school meals if you or your partner receive one of the qualifying benefits.

When making your application you are also applying for the pupil premium for your child’s school.

What are the qualifying benefits?

You will be entitled to apply for free school meals and/or pupil premium for your child if you or your partner receive one or more of the following benefits:

• Income Support
• income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
• income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• the guaranteed element of Pension Credit
• Child Tax Credit (provided you’re not also entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual gross income of no more than £16,190)
• Working Tax Credit run-on - paid for 4 weeks after you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit
• Universal Credit - if you apply on or after 1 April 2018 your household income must be less than £7,400 a year (after tax and not including any benefits you get)

 Applying for free school meals and pupil premium

When you apply you will get an instant decision on your claim. School will be contacted directly to confirm your child’s eligibility.

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