Pupil Premium & Catch-Up Funding

Pupil Premium / Disadvantaged Students Statement

The pupil premium is additional funding allocated to schools to help support certain students with the aim of closing the attainment gap between them and their peers. The school constantly challenges its students so that they achieve the highest levels of attainment whatever their starting point. The pupil premium is therefore a key resource for ensuring the realisation of this inclusive and aspirational ethos.

Those eligible are students who received free school meals in the last 6 years (FSM - Ever 6), are currently in receipt of FSM, and looked after children (LAC) or ever in care (PostLAC). These are referred to as "disadvantaged learners". Pupil premium refers to the above groups plus children who have one or more parents serving in the armed forces. We use the service pupil premium grant for the 43 students who are eligible to offer mainly pastoral support during challenging times and to help mitigate the negative impact on service children of family mobility or parental deployment. We recognise that not all students who are in need qualify for pupil premium. We therefore reserve the right to allocate the pupil premium funding to support any individual that the school has identified as being in need.
The pupil premium is used to support a range of measures employed by the school to address the discrepancy in the achievement of FSM/LAC and non FSM/LAC students. The Sutton Trust has undertaken extensive research to investigate the cost and effectiveness of various intervention strategies to improve the achievement of disadvantaged students. Its findings have been used, in part, to inform our pupil premium provision.

We will monitor closely the impact of pupil premium funding on students. Where possible, the impact on academic and pastoral outcomes will be evaluated in relation to spending, but for many activities, this is likely to be difficult due to their nature.

We are allocating pupil premium to reduce barriers to learning caused by the challenges faced by our disadvantaged learners. These have been identified as:

• Reduced attendance and issues with punctuality
• Low levels of literacy
• Issues relating to trauma and mental health
• Low levels of numeracy
• Reduced access to cultural and aspirational events

If you are experiencing financial hardship please let us know as you may be eligible for free school meals. The premium that we receive also helps us to fund additional staff and resources to make sure that all our children get an equal chance of a great education at Devizes School. In addition, if your child has ever been looked after by an English or Welsh local authority immediately before being adopted, or who left local authority care on a special guardianship order or child arrangements order (previously known as a residence order), please contact us via the address below.

To check your child's eligibility for the Pupil Premium Grant please see the letter below and complete the form.

For more information, please contact Mrs S. Puntis, Vice Principal via email [email protected]

Year 7 English & Maths Catch-up

*Figures restricted to March 2020 data capture due to limitations imposed by COVID19 pandemic. Further student progress would have been expected by the end of the academic year.