Pupil Premium and Catch Up Premium
At Faringdon Community College, we believe that all students, regardless of their background and socio-economic status, should have equal access to the curriculum and the opportunity to succeed beyond their indicated potential.
We recognise that students eligible for the Pupil Premium may have significant barriers to learning. We are committed to using the funding to break down these barriers and provide the best possible environment for these students to be successful.
What is the Pupil Premium?
The Pupil Premium is a government-funded grant given to schools to help certain groups of students be as successful as they can be in school. It is designed to help schools to narrow the achievement gap between students identified as being from a disadvantaged background and other students.
Who is eligible?
Schools receive Pupil Premium funding for the following groups of students:
1. Free School Meals - Pupils who are recorded as being eligible for free school meals or have been recorded as eligible in the past 6 years.
2. Children in care, adopted from care, or who have left care - This applies if your child was looked after by an English or Welsh authority immediately before being adopted. To enable your child’s school to claim the Pupil Premium for an adopted young person, you will need to inform the school about your child and provide supporting evidence, for example, the original Adoption (Court) Order.
3. Service Children - Children whose parents serve or have served in the armed forces are eligible for the service child premium.
How the funding works
The Pupil Premium is not a personal budget for individual students and schools do not have to spend it solely for the benefit of students who meet the funding criteria. At Faringdon Community College, we are committed to using research-based best practice to ensure that this funding is used in the most impactful way for our eligible students.
For the academic year 2023/24, the funding for Pupil Premium on a per-student basis is as follows:
1. Free School Meals: £1,035
2. Children previously looked after: £2,530
3. Service Premium: £335
Service Pupil Premium
The Service Pupil Premium is additional funding for schools for students who have parents serving in the armed forces. It is primarily to enable schools to provide pastoral support to help students manage the impact of family mobility or parental deployment. It can be used to help support academic progress for these students too, if the school deems this a priority.
How the Pupil Premium is spent
The government allows schools to determine the most appropriate use of the Pupil Premium to support narrowing the attainment gap between these students and their peers. The DfE and Education Endowment Fund provide detailed research into the most effective and impactful ways to use this funding. At Faringdon Community College, we support our disadvantaged students in the following 3 areas:
1. High quality teaching - Ensuring that all disadvantaged students receive Quality First Teaching in the classroom.
2. Targeted academic support - Ensuring effective intervention in the form of tutoring or one-to-one support in support of quality first teaching.
3. Wider support strategies - Ensuring support designed to help with other barriers to progression, such as attendance, wellbeing, behaviour.