What is the pupil premium?

The pupil premium is a grant of extra money paid to schools by the UK government to help disadvantaged children achieve more while in education.

It is based on research that demonstrates that children from families with low incomes often perform less well than their classmates due to additional hurdles in life. The funding is designed to directly benefit these students and help narrow the gap between them and their peers.

Funding is allocated to schools based on the number of pupils who:

• Are registered as eligible for targeted free school meals (FSM)
• Are recorded as being part of the Ever 6 FSM cohort in the past six years (those eligible for free school meals before the expansion to FSM eligibility in the 2026-27 academic year)
• Have previously been in care (looked after by a local authority or other state care)
• Have a parent serving in the regular armed forces, been registered as a ‘service child’ in a school census in the past 6 years, or had a parent die while serving in the armed forces and is in receipt of a pension under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme or the War Pensions Scheme

If you believe you are or will be eligible for targeted free school meals (even if you do not wish to take the free meals), please apply to enable us to claim this much appreciated source of funding.

How do we use pupil premium funding?

The pupil premium funding enables us to make significant improvements to what we’re able to offer our students, especially our disadvantaged students.

Every year we publish a Strategy Statement which provides detailed report on our intended outcomes, activity planned for the current academic year, and a review of the allocations and outcomes of the previous academic year.