Pupil Premium & Funding
Pupil Premium Impact
What is the Pupil Premium Grant (PPG)?
Schools receive an additional income called the Pupil Premium Grant. This money is allocated by the Government to help schools support the learning of children from lower income families and children in care. The amount of additional funding schools receive is based on the number of children who are entitled to receive free school meals or have been in the past 6 years, or are looked after children. The purpose of the PPG is to support students and engage students within learning, to ensure no barrier prevent learning for all.
Why does the Pupil Premium Grant exist?
Nationally, students within the pupil premium strand attain less and make slower rates of progress when compared to other students. In 2017, when the new GCSE specifications and progress measures were introduced, the national gap was 0.48 points, with students within the pupil premium strand under-performing by almost half a GCSE grade compared to other students (Education Policy Institute, 2017). The purpose of the PPG is to help all schools narrow this gap and ensure that all students are provided with equal opportunities to thrive in education.
The Pupil Premium Grant provides support for students who:
1. Were registered as eligible for free school meals at any point within the last 6 years (FSM)
2. Have been looked after for 1 day or more (CLA)
3. Were adopted from care on, or after, 30th December 2005, or left care under:
– a special guardianship order
– a child arrangements order (CLA)
The Pupil Premium Grant that schools receive is higher for CLA than FSM. It is £935 per secondary student and £2300 per students who are CLA.
Please contact school if you require more information.
How much do we receive?
| School Year | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25 |
| Number of students (Ever 6 January census) |
337 (16 CLA) | 338 (14 CLA) | 357 (12 CLA) | 344 (11 CLA) | 303 (8 CLA) | 312 (3 CLA) | 305 (4 CLA) |
| Total | £261, 489 | £279, 485 | £314, 765 | £314, 765 | £301, 015 | £327, 405 | £326,330 |
The main barriers to educational achievement faced by pupil premium (PP) students:
The Government has published independent research to demonstrate the barriers to attainment faced by students within the PP strand. Principally, these include students with lower prior attainment, especially difficulties with literacy and numeracy, and issues relating to attendance and behaviour.
At Westhoughton, we are proud of our LEARN ethos. To achieve this, we ensure that we view all students as individuals and we never assume that students within a particular group face similar barriers or that they have less potential to succeed. Our job is to treat everybody as an individual, with individual needs to support and champion to succeed. Our primary strategy is to provide quality-first teaching for all students at all times, with bespoke and personalised intervention and support, to ensure that all students succeed. Where specific additional needs are identified, we offer additional targeted support and alternative approaches wherever possible.
Research shows that barriers to educational achievement should be thought of in three distinctive layers
1. Quality First Teaching – ensuring that classroom teaching is the best that it can be for everyone, including students who are in receipt of PPG funding.
2. Targeted Academic Support – bespoke and personalised support that will ensure that those who find learning aspects of the curriculum challenging will be supported in doing so.
3. Wider Strategies – this includes a broader range of school support that will encourage all students to fully engage in school life. This could include things such as attendance strategies, behaviour support and access to the PPG wallet.
What we spent our funding on during the 2021-2022 academic year and will spend it on in 2022-23:
Quality First Teaching
- CPD for teaching staff and student facing support staff with a focus on responsive / adaptive teaching
- Whole school teaching and learning strategies to ensure all teaching staff prioritise the attainment of pupil premium students
Targeted Academic Support
- Personalise the timetable to ensure that each student follows an appropriate curriculum
- Full-time staffing to provide dedicated support in English and Maths to enable all students to access the curriculum – support can either be 1-1 or in small groups
- Provide extra support for English and maths for KS4, including booster classes and targeted intervention, ensuring all pupil premium students have relevant resources, including revision guides and all examination texts
Wider Strategies
- Provide external mentoring programmes for students with Behaviour Support
- Ensure students are able to access appropriate resources and opportunities/experiences for students (cultural capital)
- ICT equipment provided to aid learning at home
- Additional financial support offered to parents to ensure wider support from the school community (PPG Wallet)
- Dedicated attendance lead and attendance strategies
- Systematic use of data to monitor the progress of students including tracking student participation in enrichment activities and trips
- Employ SSLs (Student Support Leader) as non-teaching staff dedicated to each year group, to ensure swift communication with families
- Employ SPLs (Student Progress Leader) as teaching staff dedicated to raising the progress within their year group
PPG Statements and Reports
