Central Hub Brighton Pupil Premium Policy
1. Principles
Central Hub Brighton accepts responsibility for ‘socially disadvantaged’ pupils and are committed to meeting their pastoral, social and academic needs within a caring environment. This is an essential and integral part of the supportive ethos of the whole Hub community. As with every child in our care, a child who is considered to be ‘socially disadvantaged’ is valued, respected and entitled to develop to his/her full potential, irrespective of need.
2. Background
Pupil Premium (PP) is a Government initiative, introduced in April 2011 that targets extra money at pupils from low income backgrounds, which research shows underachieve compared to their non-disadvantaged peers. The premium is provided in order to support these pupils in reaching their potential. The Government has used a pupil’s entitlement to Free School Meals as an indicator for the potential disadvantage and deployed a fixed amount of money to schools per pupil. These funds are allocated to schools to work with pupils who have been registered for free school meals at any point in the last six years (known as ‘Ever 6 FSM’). Schools also receive funding for children who have been looked after pupils. The governors and members of the management committee of CHB recognise that not all pupils who receive free school meals will be socially disadvantaged and in addition, not all pupils who are socially disadvantaged are registered or qualify for free school meals and so flexibility in allocating PP funding is important.
3. Provision
In order to meet the purpose of the funding, Central Hub Brighton will ensure that provision is made to secure teaching and learning opportunities that meet the needs of qualifying pupils. Central Hub Brighton is committed to reducing attainment gaps between pupils of varying social backgrounds and to that end will deploy PP funding to assist relevant individuals and groups of pupils.
As part of the specific provision made for these pupils, Central Hub Brighton will ensure that their needs are adequately assessed and addressed through regular pupil progress meetings, and planned and recorded intervention strategies.
4. The range of provision
4.1. Additional individualised and group teaching and learning opportunities.
4.2. Learning support to enable pupils to fully access learning and accelerate progress where there are specific barriers including the provision of specialist equipment.
4.3. Pastoral work to raise self-esteem, extend personal skill sets and support pupils to make appropriate choices to maximise learning opportunities.
4.4. Support from our pastoral teams.
4.5. Alternative support and interventions.
The Senior Leadership Team will ensure there is an ongoing programme of support for qualifying pupils, which will be monitored by the school governors and the management committee.
5. Reporting
It will be the responsibility of the heads of school to monitor and evaluate progress on a regular basis and to ensure that governors and members of the management committee are kept up to date with this. Each head of school will produce an annual report for the governors/management committee on:
• The progress made towards narrowing the gap in achievement of qualifying pupils
• An outline of the provision that was made since the last report
• An evaluation of the effectiveness (including cost effectiveness), in terms of the academic, social and emotional progress made by the pupils receiving a particular provision
To understand the effectiveness of the interventions each head of school will provide the school Governing Body/Management Committee information on how the progress of individual pupils who receive PP compares to the progress of the school’s socially disadvantaged/vulnerable pupils in conjunction with national data sets.
The governors/members of the management committee will ensure that there is an annual statement to parents on how the PP funding has been used to address the issue of ‘narrowing the gap’, for these pupils, along with the intended use of the premium the following year. This task will be carried out within the requirements published by the Department for Education and will be uploaded on the school website.
6. Success Criteria
The evaluation of this policy is based on how quickly the CHB can ‘narrow the gap’ between qualifying pupils and their peers. Targets will be identified and evaluated annually and included in the School Development Plan.
7. Monitoring and Evaluation
The Management Committee and Heads of School will monitor the operation and effectiveness of the Pupil Premium Policy.
Our latest Pupil Premium statement can be downloaded on the link below