The pupil premium grant provides funding to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged pupils in state-funded schools in England. It designed to help disadvantaged pupils of all abilities perform better and close the gap between them and their peers.
The grant also provides support for children and young people of service families, referred to as service pupil premium (SPP). Pupils that the SPP intends to support are not necessarily from financially disadvantaged backgrounds.
Pupil Premium Plus
This is funding for looked-after children.
Virtual school heads are responsible for managing the funding given to local authorities for the children in their care. They work with schools to ensure the funding is used to help deliver the outcomes identified in the children’s personal education plans, in line with the menu of approaches.
They can pass all the funding on to schools or retain some to fund activities that will benefit a group, or all, of the local authority’s looked-after children.
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Funding for Previously Looked After Children (PLAC) is provided to improve the education outcomes for disadvantaged pupils. It is paid directly to schools and not via virtual schools.
The purpose of PP+ for LAC and PLAC is to raise educational attainment and close the gap between these students and their peers.
Pupil Premium Plus funding for Previously Looked After Children.
Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP)
The purpose of EYPP is to improve the educational outcomes of socio-economically disadvantaged children who are eligible for free early years entitlements in an early years setting.
The DfE provides a that early years settings may use for parents or carers to check eligibility. It includes a section on parental consent for early years settings and local authorities to check eligibility for EYPP:
Funding paid to schools
To ensure that pupil premium is focused on effective approaches to raising the educational attainment of disadvantaged pupils, schools (including local authority virtual schools) must spend their pupil premium grant (excluding service pupil premium) on evidence-informed activities in line with the ‘menu of approaches’ set by the Department for Education (DfE).
The menu of approaches is in ‘’.
The menu aligns with the EEF’s 3-tiered approach, which helps schools allocate spending across the following areas:
- developing high-quality teaching, for example through professional development and recruitment and retention
- providing targeted academic support, such as one-to-one or small group tuition
- tackling non-academic barriers to academic success, such as difficulties with attendance, behaviour and social and emotional wellbeing
Pupil Premium Strategy Statement
Local authority maintained schools must publish a strategy for the school’s use of the Pupil Premium on their website. .
Academies and free schools funding agreements will state what information they need to publish on their website. Guidance on what DfE recommends schools publish is also available. .