Every school has a duty to ensure that every individual child is given the best possible chance of achieving their potential.

The Government provides Pupil Premium funding, which is in addition to core school funding, to help address national inequalities between the achievements of children currently or historically eligible for free school meals or children in care, when compared with their peers.

The Pupil Premium is allocated to schools based on the number of students who are known to be currently eligible for free school meals and children who have been continuously looked after for more than six months.  In addition, we receive the funding for any student who has been eligible for free school meals in the last six years, regardless of whether they continue to be eligible today. (This funding is informally known as “Ever 6”.) The school also receives an allocation of funding for each child whose parent is in full time military service for the UK Government.

It is for 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 students on roll.

The focus of our strategy is to promote progress and remove any barriers to learning for students eligible for this funding. There has been considerable research as to how the funding should be utilised to best effect. Two of the most respected pieces of research in this area are those conducted by the Sutton Trust and the Education Endowment Foundation. As a school we have used this and other best practice guidance to determine how the funding should be spent this year.

Research has shown that in order to “narrow any achievement gap”, the best use of the money is to:

• Use it for teachers’ training and development in the areas of effective feedback and the use of Assessment for Learning strategies (this has been found to add up to 9 months of additional learning progress for students when used  effectively; very high impact for low cost)
• Encourage effective use of Homework tasks (can add up to 5 months of additional progress; moderate impact for low or no additional cost)
• 1:1 tuition for students who are underachieving (can add up to 5 months of progress; moderate impact, high cost)
• Developing study skills and independent learning techniques (can add up to 3 months progress; moderate impact for low to moderate cost)

We were keen to ensure that all interventions were open to as broad a range of students as possible (i.e. although the funding comes into school because of a certain group, the opportunities this creates would be offered as widely as possible). It is, however, important that we strongly encourage the targeted FSM/Ever 6 students to access this support.

Please note that throughout this report we refer to the Pupil Premium cohort rather than “Disadvantaged Students” but the group composition is the same.

September to July 

We prioritised the use of the Pupil Premium as follows:

• Free school meal (FSM)/Ever 6/LAC/PLAC students and other vulnerable students who are underachieving at KS4
• FSM/Ever 6/LAC/PLAC students and other vulnerable students who are underachieving at KS3
• FSM/Ever 6/LAC/PLAC students and other vulnerable students who are at risk of underachieving at KS3/4
• Other students on roll who are at risk of underachievement

We used the Pupil Premium to fund three types of activity:

• Support
• Intervention
• Enrichment

Support

• Emotional Health & Wellbeing sessions on Deep Learning Days at KS3 & 4

Intervention

• Post of Literacy Support Co-ordinator
• Additional specialist English teaching
• Handwriting intervention group resourcing
• Organisation skills intervention groups
• Mentoring Programme (staff and peer)
• Purchase of subject specific revision guides for all Pupil Premium students
• Training of peer Teaching & Learning Ambassadors, Organisation Ambassadors, Literacy Leaders and Reading Ambassadors

Enrichment

• Subsidised and/or fully-funded extra-curricular activities and visits for Pupil Premium students (such as fieldwork/overseas visits, music lessons, instrument purchase, sporting activities)
• Facilitating access to a laptop/tablet out of school, for PP students
• Enrichment activities/opportunities such as the Duke of Edinburgh’s Bronze Award

Impact and Outcomes

When considering performance data it is important to note that due to the small number in the Pupil Premium cohort the performance of one student can have a significant impact. Contextual information relating to the composition of the cohort is crucial in any analysis.

UWS Pupil Premium (Disadvantaged) students have excellent school attendance compared to other schools nationally. The average attendance of a Year 11 Pupil Premium student at UWS was 95%. Only one of these students had any unauthorised absence (1.3%) and one was classes as a “persistent absentee” at 88%.

UWS PP students do significantly better in English and Mathematics than other similar students nationally. 60% UWS Pupil Premium students achieved 5 “strong” passes including English and Mathematics.

Nationally, less than 10% disadvantaged students achieve a grade 6+ in Mathematics and English [2019 data]. At UWS this figure is 33%.

The average grade [A8] achieved by a Pupil Premium student at UWS in summer 2022 was 5.48. This is higher than the average grade achieved by all other UWS students.

32% Pupil Premium students were entered for the EBacc and 100% these students achieved it at Grade 4+. This compares to approximately 11% Disadvantaged students nationally (2018 data).

The progress of Pupil Premium students is closely monitored through:

• Regular student support and pastoral meetings
• Analysis of interim tracking data
• All staff know which students are in the Pupil Premium cohort and are asked to monitor progress closely, alerting subject leaders and Heads of Faculty to any concerns
• Pupil Premium 1:1 termly conversations with pastoral staff and maintenance of Pupil Premium case studies

Our plans:

Pupil Premium funding per eligible student was £985 and we received £67,674.

Our expected allocation for the academic year is approximately £88,937. Please see the detailed Pupil Premium strategy planning document for further details.

Plans for this academic year include a continuation of all of the activities, support and intervention detailed above, plus:

• Developing our intervention programmes for all students encountering barriers to learning
• Continuing to offer opportunities through our extensive enrichment and extra-curricular programme to broaden horizons and raise expectations
• Offering all Pupil Premium students an individual Careers Education, Information, Advice & Guidance interview with a specialist advisor
• Development of the academic and pastoral mentoring programmes to offer personalised care, guidance and support for all Pupil Premium students during their time at UWS
• Develop student leadership posts to enhance peer support and tuition for all students
• Development of nurture and emotional literacy intervention provision for the most vulnerable learners at KS3