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 (1st April – 31st March) | Apr 18 – Mar 19 | Apr 19 – Mar 20 | Apr 20 – Mar 21 |
| Status | Complete | Complete | Estimated |
| Allocation | £464,695 | £466,565 | £469,860 |
| Students | 504 | 508 | 507 |
| Catch up Funding | £19,115 | £19,232 | £21,175 |
| Pupil Premium Spend – Academic Year (1st September – 31st August) | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 |
| Estimated | |||
| Income by academic year | £466,263 | £467,946 | £537,245 |
| Expenditure | |||
| Teaching post for intervention | £98,570 | £98,926 | £113,576 |
| SLT support to focus and achievement | £57,717 | £57,926 | £66,504 |
| Ed support staff | £14,889 | £14,943 | £17,156 |
| Raising attainment posts | £26,254 | £26,349 | £30,251 |
| Behavioural Support | £34,336 | £34,459 | £39,563 |
| e-Learning posts | £48,521 | £48,696 | £55,908 |
| Classroom res and extra-curricular activities | £179,418 | £180,065 | £206,732 |
| Well-being intervention | £6,558 | £6,582 | £7,556 |
| Total | £466,623 | £467,946 | £537,245 |
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.
- 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.
- Breaking silence
- BEAM counselling and emotional support
- Sandwell Early Intervention team (for psychosis)
- Sandwell Eating Disorders Team
- Birmingham Forward Thinking
- Edward’s Trust Bereavement Counselling
- 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
- The CSE team (based in Sandwell Children’s Services)
- Brook
- Barnardos SPACE (Birmingham CSE team)
- ART in Dudley for victims of CSE
- Family support Team (part of Birmingham Children’s Services)
- Krunch (mentoring and girls group)
- Brushstrokes
- Smethwick Food Bank
- ASIRT (advice and support for asylum seeker families)
- St Chad’s Sanctuary (for refugees and asylum seekers)
- RESTORE (befriending service for asylum seeker families)
- Smethwick Asian Families Support Service
- PREVENT team
- Children In Need Emergency Essentials Fund
- Jubilee Food Network
- The African French Community
- Smart Works Birmingham
- Birmingham and Solihull Women’s Aid
- RSVP
- Smethwick COG
- Welfare Rights
- Cape Hill Children’s Centre
- Shout Text Support
- CEOP
- Strong Minds, Brave Hearts (based at Murray Hall)
- Sandwell Advocacy Voice and Empowerment (SAVE) Project
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.
- 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 April 2021.
In 2018-19, pupil premium students at the academy achieved a progress 8 score of +0.31; this is ahead of the local authority average of -0.08 and the national average of +0.13 for non-disadvantaged students. Furthermore, the progress 8 score of +0.31 for disadvantaged students is on par with the progress 8 score of all students at the academy as a whole in 2018-19 (+0.30).
Our Year 7 catch-up funding is used to help fund the role of a member of staff who supports students with one-to-one and small group catch-up in literacy and reading.
In 2020-21, we have also used this funding to provide access to CAT testing for Year 7 students in order for us to identify gaps in their knowledge and skills. As a result, we have been able to accurately devise appropriate support strategies following the disruption to students’ Year 6 studies due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
