Pupil Premium

St James is allocated additional funding for those children in receipt of free school meals which is referred to as Pupil Premium.

The Governors at St James allocate the pupil premium grant funding to support our children accademically, socially and specifically those with barriers to learning.

Principals for Using the Funding

• We ensure that quality-first teaching and learning opportunities meet the needs of all pupils.
• We ensure appropriate provision is made for pupils that belong to vulnerable groups, this includes ensuring that the needs of socially disadvantaged pupils are assessed and addressed.
• We also recognise that not all pupils who are socially disadvantaged are registered or qualify for free school meals.
• We reserve the right to allocate Pupil Premium funding to support any pupil or groups of pupils the school has legitimately identified as being socially disadvantaged.

School Context

• The school is situated in an area of high deprivation and the percentage of children who are identified as disadvantaged is in the top 20% nationally. 

• The proportion of pupils eligible for pupil premium support is currently 51% and is above the 2019 national average of 23%. 

• Children in receipt of free school meals currently make up 45%.

• Staff continued to engage with pupils throughout lockdown and supported their learning, giving high quality feedback through the remote learning platform (Seesaw).  Curriculum packs were also made available to pupils that were unable to access digital platforms, alongside the government allocation of laptops to be made available for families and pupils that had no access to online provision.

• Pastoral support was provided for our most vulnerable families throughout lockdown with children attending school alongside key worker children. Regular welfare calls home were made.

Main Barriers to Achievement for Eligible Pupils 

• Vocabulary acquisition;
• Reading fluency, comprehension and reading for pleasure;
• Securing basic skills in writing with a focus on sentence composition and spelling;
• Levels of persistent absence;
• Opportunities to explore cultural capital and resillience. 

Please click here to read our Pupil Premium Strategy document for 2020-21. This will be evaluated in July 2021 and reviewed by governors in September 2021. 

Please click here to read our Pupil Premium Strategy document from 2019-2020 to see how we spent Pupil Premium previously and the impact this had.