Stebon Pupil Premium Statement
Pupil Premium (PP) is the additional funding provided by government to support disadvantaged pupils and enable them to achieve as well as their peers. The term ‘pupil premium’ includes Children Looked After & those eligible for a free school meal (FSM).
Barriers to learning for ‘disadvantaged’ pupils at Stebon
- Parents’ low level of spoken or written English can mean that support with homework & models of a high standard of English at home are limited
- Parents’ SEN can have a negative impact on pupils’ learning outside of the school day both in terms of homework & also broader life skills
- Parents caring for other dependents can mean that time spent with pupils is limited which has an impact on homework & emotional wellbeing
- Parents’ physical or mental illness can have a negative impact on pupils’ learning & wellbeing at home & can cause anxiety which inhibits learning
- Family trauma, e.g. domestic violence or bereavement, can have a long term impact on wellbeing & can inhibit learning both in and out of school
- Pupils’ SEN; a high proportion of PP pupils who also have SEN which require specialist strategies to be in place for them to access learning
- COVID-19 created additional barriers to PP pupils including;
- digital disadvantage – families’ lack of access to &/or inability to use digital resources limits their children’s access to online learning
- financial pressures/poverty, a consequence of families being placed on furlough or made redundant, can create additional stress in households when trying to meet basic needs
Our approach
At Stebon we have worked hard to accelerate the progress of our ‘disadvantaged’ pupils. We have examined strategies tried in other schools including those on the Education Endowment Fund website. As part of our school improvement work, our teachers have designed and carried out action research projects with their classes to establish which approaches were most successful.
We discovered a strong link between SEND & disadvantage which suggested that money spent on specialist learning support & interventions is well targeted. Similarly there is a higher incidence of child protection concerns amongst disadvantaged families so spending on services such as a family engagement officer, a family engagement assistant, a school social worker & other therapeutic strategies is important. We recognise too that some children and families may require a combination of strategies to have an impact on attainment.
The most important conclusion from this piece of work however was that the blanket, one-size-fits-all, approach does not go far enough to close the achievement gap between ‘disadvantaged’ pupils & ‘others’.
So we look more closely at the circumstances and needs of individual pupils and their families. There are many different causes of & reasons for family unemployment, the nature of which can help us to define & design the right kinds of support.
