What is the Pupil Premium Grant?

Ashcroft Technology Academy (ATA) receives a proportion of its overall annual funding in the form of a Pupil Premium Grant (PPG). The PPG is allocated to children from low-income families who are, or have been, eligible for free school meals (FSM), within the last six years. The grant is also made available to support children of service personnel and children who are looked after by the local authority (LAC).

What are our aims for the Pupil Premium Grant?

Our aims for the PPG are to identify, create and implement strategies that help to increase social mobility and reduce the attainment gap that exists nationally between the most and least disadvantaged students. ATA places a strong emphasis on secure foundations in literacy, numeracy, behaviour, positive routines and personal ambition because we believe that our disadvantaged students require most support in these important areas to be successful. Furthermore, we believe that strong literacy and numeracy, positive attitudes, courteous behaviour and a strong work ethic, supported by individual ambition, are crucial in preparing all our students for life beyond the Academy, regardless of their ability or background.

Who benefits from the Pupil Premium Grant?

At ATA, we ensure that the PPG has the most benefit for those with the greatest disadvantage. Our intention, therefore, is to build capacity and maximise our impact.  ATA welcomes a large proportion of disadvantaged children each year.  This means that many of the interventions we put in place are shared by all children but have the greatest benefit to and impact on students from disadvantaged backgrounds. We do this because we wish to promote good progress for all children; and this is borne out in the results all of our students achieve at the end of Key Stage 4.

What barriers do students eligible for the Pupil Premium Grant face?

The barriers and challenges disadvantaged students face are complex, varied and characteristic of our context: there is no single difficulty faced by all. However, from experience, we have identified several barriers that we believe are particularly relevant to our disadvantaged children.

• Potential to be less aspirational and, in many cases, have not yet learnt about possible futures
• Potential to have lower confidence and self-esteem than their peers
• Potential for limited access to school trips and extra-curricular enrichment activities
• Potential for limited access to support for learning beyond the classroom
• Potential for a less structured learning environment at home
• Reticence to complete homework independently
• Relatively weak literacy
• Relatively weak numeracy

How do we decide how to spend the Pupil Premium Grant?

We allocate our PPG to resources that are designed to close the gaps in these areas.  Our interventions are research informed, context specific and improved over time as we learn from experience with each cohort.  The interventions include, but are not limited to:

• Inclusive Care and Support (ICAS) exists to support the consistent application of the Academy’s behaviour policy.  Students develop good routines and are provided with focused mentoring, when needed, to overcome potential barriers to their learning.
• Measures to promote attendance and punctuality
• Reduced contact teaching time for members of the Leadership Group to work with parents in order to achieve better routines and work ethic in students
• Reduced contact teaching time for Heads of Year and members of the Leadership Group to allow time to be spent on monitoring performance and identifying and implementing interventions for students
• Support programmes in the Learning Support department and in ICAS, including homework club, transition programmes, key skills development, emotional and behavioural support in small groups
• Access to ICT and study resources before and after the main Academy day
• Peer mentoring programmes and peer reading programmes
• Provision of extra teaching staff in English, Maths and French to create small extra, low ability sets in Years 7 to 11 to support performance at GCSE
• Programmes to develop effective study skills in Years 10 and 11 (subject based power hours, study hall and catch-up)
• Easter revision courses for Year 11, 12 and 13
• Targeted Careers-related interventions
• Financial assistance towards school trips
• Financial assistance towards music lessons

 

PPG funding arrangements

PPG funding has existed since April 2011, and the annual amount received by ATA over time is shown below.  In some cases, the total figure does not match with the number of students who qualify for additional funding.  This is because a small minority of the students in this group may attract a higher amount of funding because they are post-guardianship children or children of services personnel.

PPG funding is received on a quarterly basis and paid in arrears. The figures shown below are in-line with the pupil premium allocation statements ATA receives from the ESFA, but these figures are always subject to some in-year adjustments to reflect changes in personal circumstances.  These figures are revised each financial year and not each academic year and are therefore recorded differently in ATA’s year-end accounts.

	2021-22	2020-21	2019-20	2018-19	2017-18	2016-17	2015-16	2014-15
Number of Yr. 7 – 11 students on roll	1064	1072	1058	1,030	1,054	1,056	1,054	1,029
Number of PPG Students*	339.5	361	406	425	455.5	477	506	513
Rate per Student	£955	£955	£935	£935	£935	£935	£935	£935
Pupil Premium Funding*	£324,223	£344,755	£381,480	£397,375	£425,892	£445,995	£473,110	£479,655

* does not include LAC.

During the academic year 2020 to 2021, the ESFA made additional payments to schools in the form of a Catch-Up Premium.  This premium payment was intended to help schools provide additional support to students who they believed had fallen further behind in their academic progress as a result of two school closures. ATA welcomed this much needed additional support, which it added to its PPG to provide further interventions which benefited the students who had been most affected. 

The costs met by the PPG and the supplementary Catch-Up Premium fund during the academic year 2020 to 2021 are as follows:

 

Staffing Related	£
Learning Mentors and Assistant Learning Mentors – full cost	323,446
Education Welfare Officer – 50% of full cost	16,669
Counselling and external mentoring provision	2,625
Specific DSL interventions -1 x 10% in the year	10,758
Heads of Year – 5% across the year	15,312
Study Hall management and oversight	12,332
Catch-up classes after school	10,002
Network staff costs re: laptop loan – 2 x staff x 3/12 of year	4,230
LRC supervision of vulnerable/critical worker children – 2 months	6,536
LRC provision prior to school	2,405
Other Related Costs
Direct pupil support - clothing grants/vouchers etc.	3,685
ICAS running costs	821
Specialist resources	7
Meal support (non-current FSM students)	4
Music Tuition subsidy	604