Pupil premium is funding to improve education outcomes for disadvantaged pupils in schools in England. Evidence shows that disadvantaged children generally face additional challenges in reaching their potential at school and often do not perform as well as other pupils.

Pupil premium funding is allocated to schools for pupils who are eligible for free school meals (or have been eligible in the past 6 years), for pupils who have been adopted from care or have left care, and for children who are looked after by the local authority.

Service pupil premium is additional funding for children in schools who have a parent serving in the regular armed forces, who have previously been registered as a ‘service child’ in any school census in the last 6 years, or whose parent has died while serving in the armed forces, and the pupil receives a pension under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme or the War Pensions Scheme. This funding is primarily to help with pastoral support. It can also be used to help improve the academic progress of eligible pupils if we think this is a priority.

Claiming Free School Meals

Pupil Premium is a significant amount of money and it is important that all families who may be eligible for Free School Meals make sure that they apply. Please see the school office if you are unsure or use the government's Apply for Free School Meals web page. 

Using the Pupil Premium

As a school, we decide on how to spend our pupil premium (and recovery premium) within a ‘menu of approaches’ set out by the Department for Education. The menu is designed to help us use our funding effectively to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils. The menu is based on evidence from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) that suggests pupil premium spending is most effective when used across these three areas:

• Supporting high-quality teaching, such as staff professional development.
• Targeted academic support, such as tutoring.
• Wider strategies to address non-academic barriers to success in schools, such as attendance, behaviour, and social and emotional support.

Pupil premium is not a personal budget for individual pupils, and schools are not required to spend all of their allocated grant on eligible pupils.

Details about pupil premium can be found on the Department for Education’s Pupil Premium Overview web page.

Combs Ford Pupil Premium Strategy Statements

You can find out how we use our Pupil Premium Grant, Recovery Premium and School-Led Tutoring Grant by clicking on Combs Ford Primary School Pupil Premium Strategy Statement 2022-2025 (Updated January 2024).

Page reviewed on 19/02/24 by KJD.