Pupil Premium

What is the Pupil Premium Plus (PP+) Funding?

Looked-after children attract Pupil Premium Plus (PP+) funding, which is provided to help improve their attainment and close the gap between this group and their peers. This extra funding reflects the significant additional barriers that have been faced by this particular group of children, compared to their peers. The Designated Teacher must ensure the funding is used appropriately to address these needs.

For further details, please visit GOV.UK.

 

Distribution of the PP+ funding

Distribution of the PP+ funding is at the discretion of the Virtual School Head. The centrally held funding will be used to:

  • ensure the Virtual School has the capacity to provide more targeted casework support to schools, including more flexibility for staff members to attend PEP meetings and to respond to concerns around behaviour or learning impacting on academic progress
  • facilitate more intensive packages of intervention and support to young people in crisis who may have complex or high levels of need that is unexpected and/or who may be experiencing unplanned transitions
  • provide a wide and high-quality training programme and an annual conference for all professionals to support them to be effective in their role and in fulfilling their responsibilities
  • fund central initiatives to raise children’s attainment such as enrichment programmes, literacy events and resources and events to celebrate achievement

Funding will be withheld from pupils in the high-cost independent provision, as it is expected that these environments are already funded at a high level by central budgets to meet complex, individual needs. However, additional funding can be requested for exceptional circumstances (i.e. children having to move to emergency placements).

Any intervention must be evidence-based and may include targeted catch up, 1:1 tuition, literacy and numeracy programmes, or study skills support. It can be used to support emotional development and well-being where this impacts on learning. For children who are excelling, aspirational activities should be considered.

Impact of Pupil Premium interventions

The Education Endowment Fund (EEF) has completed extensive research on the impact of Pupil Premium interventions. Some very useful resources include:

The designated teacher must provide the Virtual School with detailed information every term on how PP+ funding has been used, including evidence of impact.

The Virtual School is responsible for ensuring that the use of PP+ is specifically reviewed in the auditing of PEPs and its impact is measured.

It also must provide training and guidance to all involved parties on the effective use of the PP+.