Pupil Premium

Our Pupil Premium Strategy – Shine as Lights in the World

At St Michael’s we want all our children to Shine as Lights in the World and as such will support them all in providing the opportunities to ‘shine’, be that academically, in music, sport and creativity. The personal development of all our pupils is paramount and our PSHE programme that incorporates our core Values (Friendship, Courage, Love etc.), as well as our My Personal Best Programme, teaching life skills (resilience, motivation, responsibility etc.) aims to build confidence, successful relationships and life-long learning. (See PSHE & RSE policies). We want all our families to share in the high aspirations of the school in the knowledge that we will all encourage success and support them in developing the skills to succeed alongside an enjoyment of their learning.

We aim to remove the barriers to learning that some of our pupils may have due to; poor attendance, poor mental health, financial hardship, additional needs and parents/carers struggling to give support at home, so that all children are able to learn and succeed. Economic capital is linked to the level of a pupil's cultural and social capital; the differences in experiences that our disadvantaged children may have had. At St Michael's we place great importance to giving children exposure not only to culture, but also to situations they might not have previous experiences in. This is key to their success.

The pupil premium is a sum of money given to schools each year by the Government to improve the attainment of disadvantaged children. This is based on research showing that children from low income families perform less well at school than their peers. Often, children who are entitled to pupil premium face challenges such as poor language and communication skills, lack of confidence and issues with attendance and punctuality. The pupil premium is intended to directly benefit the children who are eligible, helping to narrow the gap between them and their classmates.

Schools are given a pupil premium for:

• Children who have qualified for free school meals at any point in the past six years. The school receives £1345 (from April 20) for each of these children.
• Children who are or have been looked after under local authority care for more than one day. These children are awarded a premium of £2345 (from April 20).
• Children from service families who receive a child pension from the Ministry of Defence. They are awarded £310 (from April 20).

In March 2018 the Government announced that free school meals would only be available to children in KS2 whose families have a net income of £7400 or under, effective from 1 April 2018. If your child was previously entitled to free school meals but is no longer, they will still receive pupil premium based on the 'Ever 6' qualification (a pupil who has ever had free school meals in the past six years).

Prior to April 2018, children qualified for free school meals – and accordingly pupil premium – if you received any of the following benefits:

• Income support
• Income-based jobseekers’ allowance
• Income-related employment and support allowance
• Support under Part IV of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• The guaranteed element of state pension credit
• Child tax credit, provided that you are not also entitled to working tax credit and have an annual gross income of £16,190 or less

These benefits have now been rolled into a single benefit, called Universal Credit. From April 2018, free school meals and pupil premium will only be allocated to pupils with a family income under £7400 (net) per year.

Please contact the school office and we will be able to tell you what you need to do to register your child as eligible.

Since September 2014, all children in Reception and Years 1 and 2 have qualified for free school meals, regardless of their family income, but only the children who would qualify for free meals under the above income-based criteria will receive the pupil premium.

If your child qualifies for free school meals, it’s important that you tell their school – even if they take a packed lunch – as this enables them to claim pupil premium.

Schools can choose how to spend their pupil premium money, as they are best placed to identify what would be of most benefit to the children who are eligible. Often, all of the children in a class will reap some benefit from how the school spends its pupil premium: for example, if the money is used to fund an additional teaching assistant who works across the whole class, rather than providing one-to-one support. But research shows that the fund does help to narrow gaps between disadvantaged children and their peers, particularly in English and maths.