Pupil Premium and Service Premium

PUPIL PREMIUM AND FREE SCHOOL MEALS

Extra funding is provided for schools called 'Pupil Premium'.  This funding relates to children who are currently eligible for free school meals; have been eligible for free school meals in the last six years; have been, or currently are Looked After by a Local Authority or are children of someone who serves in the armed forces.

This extra money is used to - 

• Improve Educational Provision/Resources
• Academic Interventions
• Wellbeing and Self-esteem Interventions
• Improve attendance

Your child might be eligible for free school meals if you access:

• Income Support
• Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance or Employment and Support 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
• Universal Credit (provided you have an annual net earned income not exceeding £7,400 - £616.67 per month).

If the answer to the above is YES then your child/children may be entitled to Free School Meals.

Please ask to speak to Mrs Salerno at the school office for more information. This will be confidential. 

Universal Infant Free School Meals

All children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 are entitled to a Universal Free School Meal - this is different to Pupil Premium.  If you meet any of the criteria above you should register for Free School Meals as this provides additional funding for educational, social and wellbeing interventions within the school.  You can still provide a packed lunch for your child, if they prefer this, the meal does not HAVE to be taken. 

Service Pupil Premium

The Department for Education introduced the Service Pupil Premium (SPP) in April 2011 in recognition of the specific challenges children from service families face and as part of the commitment to delivering the armed forces covenant. State schools, academies and free schools in England, which have children of service families in school years Reception to Year 11, can receive the SPP funding. It is designed to assist the school in providing the additional support that these children may need.

Eligibility criteria

Pupils attract the SPP if they meet the following criteria:

• one of their parents is serving in the regular armed forces
• they have been registered as a ‘service child’ in the school census at any point since 2011
• one of their parents died whilst serving in the armed forces and the pupil receives a pension under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme or the War Pensions Scheme

The purpose of the Service Pupil Premium

Eligible schools receive the SPP so that they can offer mainly pastoral support during challenging times and to help mitigate the negative impact on service children of family mobility or parental deployment. Mobility is when a service family is posted from one location to another, including overseas and within the UK. Deployment is when a service person is serving away from home for a period of time. This could be a 6 to 9 month tour of duty, a training course or an exercise which could last for a few weeks.

How Service Pupil Premium differs from the Pupil Premium

The SPP is there for schools to provide mainly pastoral support for service children, whereas the Pupil Premium was introduced to raise attainment and accelerate progress within disadvantaged groups.

What could the Service Pupil Premium be used for?

In order to support the pastoral needs of service children, schools have flexibility over how they use the SPP, as they are best placed to understand and respond to the specific needs of those pupils for whom the funding has been allocated. The funding could be spent on providing a variety of means of support including counselling provision, nurture groups, etc.

Schools might also consider how to improve the level of and means of communication between the child and their deployed parents. In addition, staff hours may be required to support the needs of service children when they join a new school as a result of a posting or when a parent is deployed and these hours could be funded by the Service Pupil Premium.  SPP should not be used to subsidise routine school activities (trips, music lessons etc.).

How do we use the Service Premium?

We use the Service Premium to provide extra support for assessing and understanding where pupils are when service children first arrive. This helps to ensure work is pitched to the correct level. We have bought resources to support children in developing their skills and expertise within the curriculum based on those initial assessments. The funding is also used to provide emotional and pastoral support through our Learning Mentor.  If you are a service family, and you are dealing with issues around deployment or mobility, please do not hesitate to contact the school office and ask to speak to Mrs Henderson, so we can tailor our support to your child's needs. 

 

Reporting Pupil Premium and Service Pupil Premium

South View Community Primary School will publish details of the use of the Pupil Premium and Service Pupil Premium Grant annually. This report aims to detail information on how Pupil Premium and Service Pupil Premium are used within the school. This report will detail the attainment and progress of pupils who are covered by the Pupil Premium only and the intervention that has been supported by the additional funding.