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Pupil Premium

The Academy

The pupil premium is additional government funding for publicly funded schools in England to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils and close the gap between them and their peers.

SUMMARY OF PUPIL PREMIUMS ALLOCATION AND CATCH UP FUNDING

Financial year allocation

DateAllocation
Apr 17 to Mar 18£481,525.00
Apr 18 to Mar 19£464,695.00
Apr 19 to Mar 20£466,565.00
Apr 20 to Mar 21£469,860.00
Apr 21 to Mar 22£527,637.50
Apr 22 to Mar 23£550,615.00
Apr 22 to Mar 23 – Estimated£551,484.44

Academic years – income and expenditure

Ìý2021/22Ìý2022/23Ìý2023/24
IncomeExpectedActualÌýExpectedActualÌýExpectedActual
Sep to Mar£ –£304,553.72Ìý£230,805.74£325,217.98Ìý£577,528.00Ìý
Apr to Aug£540,626.00£230,805.74Ìý£790,732.92£234,709.20ÌýÌýÌý
Total Income£540,626.00£535,359.46Ìý£559,927.18£559,927.18Ìý£577,528.00£ –
ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý
ExpenditureExpectedActualÌýExpectedActualÌýExpectedActual
Teaching post for intervention£ –£143,003.42Ìý£ –£187,682.25Ìý£ –£ –
SLT support to focus and achievement£ –£ 66,589.06Ìý£ –£69,176.24Ìý£ –£ –
Ed support staff£ –£0.11Ìý£ –£18,825.83Ìý£ –£ –
Raising attainment posts£ –£ –Ìý£ –£33,195.82Ìý£ –£ –
Behavioural Support£ –£ –Ìý£ –£3,413.62Ìý£ –£ –
e-Learning posts£ –£ –Ìý£ –£61,349.97Ìý£ –£ –
Classroom res and extra-curricular activities£ –£212,454.49Ìý£ –£146,283.44Ìý£ –£ –
Wellbeing intervention£ –£1,081.29Ìý£ –£ –Ìý£ –£ –
Total Expenditure£ –£423,128.37Ìý£ –£559,927.18Ìý£ –£ –

Pupil premium funding is used to support a raft of interventions specifically targeted at those students who are eligible for this funding at the academy. As approximately half of the students at the academy are covered by this, there are some large scale interventions and principles outlined below.

The key principles of the use of our pupil premium funding are: addressing individual need and equality of opportunity where there are difficult circumstances; and providing strong additional academic support for our pupil premium students with the allocated funding.

Pupil premium is an identified and monitored attribute for students at a whole school and departmental level. All teaching staff are aware of these students within their classes and are asked to be mindful of when and where support needs to be drawn from the funding to provide equality of opportunity.

Key barriers to students’ attainment are:
  • Significant numbers of safeguarding issues which disproportionally affect these students.
  • Poverty reducing students’ participation in extra-curricular activities and trips.
  • Low home aspirations or areas where no English is spoken in the home.
  • Higher ability students’ confidence and motivation to achieve the top grades.

Specific interventions include:
  • Raising the standards of higher ability pupil premium students.
  • Increasing students’ cultural capital and inquisitiveness
  • Providing strong role models
  • A series of raising aspiration interventions such as our Theatre School.
Educational support staff are important in closing the gap for pupil premium students. Mentoring, safeguarding and behaviour specialists are all employed to deal with issues within students’ lives, with additional support provided by the academy’s attendance team, Local Authority and part-time agencies.
 
The academy has created a supportive learning suite to aid students who are falling behind on their studies. Here, in a safe and secure environment, students are assessed and given one-to-one provision with a structured plan to secure a more confident return into mainstream lessons within the Academy. We believe that until students are safely cared for there will be restrictions to their academic progress.
 
From a safeguarding perspective, to help solve students’ complex needs, the academy has added an additional post to the safeguarding team in order to create capacity for a focus on pupil premium students.
 
In 2022-24 our non-teaching staff working with pupil premium students engaged with the following agencies:
  • Sandwell Early Intervention team (for psychosis)
  • Sandwell Eating Disorders Team
  • Birmingham Forward Thinking
  • Kaleidoscope
  • Exam stress groups with education psychologist
  • School Health Nurse drop in
  • Black Country Women’s Aid
  • Kooth online counselling
  • Sandwell young carers
  • Birmingham young carers
  • DECCA
  • CAMHS
  • Targeted Youth Support
  • Barnardos Family Support
  • Brook
  • Barnardos SPACE (Birmingham CSE team)
  • Family support Team (part of Birmingham Children’s Services)
  • Krunch (mentoring and girls group)
  • Brushstrokes
  • Smethwick Food Bank
  • Smethwick Asian Families Support Service
  • PREVENT team
  • The African French Community
  • Smart Works Birmingham
  • Birmingham and Solihull Women’s Aid
  • RSVP
  • Welfare Rights
  • Cape Hill Children’s Centre
  • Shout Text Support
  • CEOP
  • Sandwell Advocacy Voice and Empowerment (SAVE) Project
  • Community navigators / family support
  • STEPS – Immigration support
  • Sandwell pantry / food bank
  • Family strengthening teams
  • Reflections – Emotional Wellbeing Support
  • The Proud Trust – LBGT+youth

A large portion of the funding goes to supporting students’ equality of opportunity. This includes, but is not exclusive to, free resources such as: revision guides; stationery; uniform support; peripatetic music tuition; trips and after school activities with no charge; Saturday School; and transition Summer Schools. This direct support accounts for roughly 40% of all pupil premium spend.

We have a hard-to-reach families project that ensures that when there are missed engagements e.g. parents’ evenings or information evenings, additional effort is put in to reach those families to ensure that they are involved in students’ education.

Raising attainment involves using specific staff to work with pupil premium students to improve their grades. Examples include:
  • One-to-one personalised intervention with ‘Tute’ video-conferenced lessons specifically targeted at their weaknesses.
  • There are a number of whole-school opportunities in which the delivery has been changed to maximise the use by pupil premium students. For example, all students have access to GCSEPod and Century Tech.
  • Catch-up classes in Years 7 and 8 to stop the gap forming early in the students’ experience.

Impact is measured through a cohort analysis of each subject and year group for pupil premium at each assessment point. A senior member of staff is detailed to examine this data and present to the senior team and Standards and Performance Committee on recommendations for further pupil premium intervention. Approximately 10% of pupil premium spend is on senior staff to co-ordinate intervention and measure impact.

The current date of the Pupil Premium Strategy Review is Spring 1 2024.

Pupil Premium students at °®¶¹´«Ã½Èë¿Ú outperformed their counterparts, nationally, regionally and locally in the key areas of Progress 8 and achievement of both good and strong passes in English and Mathematics.
P8 EM 4+ EM 5+
SCA 0.04 54% 33%
Sandwell -0.37 41% 25%
National -0.58 43% 25%

Information on the catch up premium can be found in the pupil premium policy.