The parent's guide to the pupil premium
Coronavirus free school meals update
Many children who receive pupil premium are eligible for free school meals. If your child usually qualifies for free school meals based on the family receiving certain benefits, this will continue during coronavirus school closures and, in 2020 only, during the school summer holidays.
This could be in the form of food vouchers, direct payments, schools keeping kitchens open, or packed lunch deliveries.
You can find out more in our article on free school meals for primary school pupils.
What is the pupil premium?
Introduced in 2011, the pupil premium is a sum of money given to schools each year by the Government to improve the attainment of disadvantaged children.
This is based on research showing that children from low income families perform less well at school than their peers.
Often, children who are entitled to pupil premium face challenges such as poor language and communication skills, lack of confidence and issues with attendance and punctuality. The pupil premium is intended to directly benefit the children who are eligible, helping to narrow the gap between them and their classmates.
Is your child eligible?
Primary schools are given a pupil premium for:
- Children in Reception to Year 6 who are currently entitled to free school meals based on their family income: £1345 per pupil, per school year
- Children in Reception to Year 6 who were previously entitled to benefits-based free school meals, even if they're no longer eligible: £1345 per pupil, per school year, for six years after they stopped qualifying for free school meals
- Children in care: £2345 per pupil, per school year
- Children previously in care who have been adopted, or who have a special guardianship order, a child arrangements order or a residence order: £2345 per pupil, per school year
- Children recorded as being from service families: £310 per pupil, per school year
How is it spent?
Schools can choose how to spend their pupil premium money, as they are best placed to identify what would be of most benefit to the children who are eligible.
Common ways in which schools spend their pupil premium fund include:
- Extra one-to-one or small-group support for children within the classroom.
- Employing extra teaching assistants to work with classes.
- Running catch-up sessions before or after school, for example for children who need extra help with maths or literacy.
- Running a school breakfast club to improve attendance.
- Providing extra tuition for able children.
- Providing music lessons for children whose families would be unable to pay for them.
- Funding educational trips and visits.
- Paying for additional help such as speech and language therapy or family therapy.
- Funding English classes for children who speak another language at home.
- Investing in resources that boost children’s learning, such as laptops or tablets.
However, some schools use their pupil premium in more creative ways.
In the annual Pupil Premium Awards, recent winners spent their money on a bike for a child who was repeatedly late for school due to missing the bus, a nutritionist for a Year 5 child whose poor diet was causing behavioural and learning difficulties, and shoes and school uniform – including a PE kit – for a disadvantaged child in Year 3.
Often, all of the children in a class will reap some benefit from how the school spends its pupil premium: for example, if the money is used to fund an additional teaching assistant who works across the whole class, rather than providing one-to-one support.
But research shows that the fund does help to narrow gaps between disadvantaged children and their peers, particularly in English and maths.
Can you influence how the pupil premium is used?
There is no obligation for your school to consult you about how they use the money they claim for your child, although some schools may involve parents.
However, schools do have to show that they are using their pupil premium fund appropriately. This is measured through Ofsted inspections and annual performance tables showing the progress made by children who are eligible for pupil premium.
In addition, they have to publish details online, including how much money they have been allocated, how they intend to spend it, how they spent their previous year’s allocation and how it made a difference to the attainment of disadvantaged pupils.
How to claim your child’s pupil premium
All children who currently qualify for free school meals based on their family circumstances are entitled to pupil premium. This applies if you receive any of the following benefits:
- Universal credit (provided you have a net income of £7400 or less)
- Income support
- Income-based jobseekers’ allowance
- Income-related employment and support allowance
- Support under Part IV of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
- The guaranteed element of state pension credit
- Child tax credit, provided that you are not also entitled to working tax credit and have an annual gross income of £16,190 or less
Children who are or have been in care, and children who have a parent who is or was in the armed forces, are also entitled to pupil premium.
In addition, pupils who have qualified for free school meals on the above grounds in the past, but are no longer eligible, continue to receive pupil premium for the next six years.
Schools are responsible for recording the children who are eligible for pupil premium in their annual school census - you don't have to do anything yourself, other than making sure you return any paperwork that relates to the benefits you receive or your child's entitlement to free school meals.
If your child qualifies for free school meals or has at any point in the past six years, it’s important that you tell their school – even if they're in Reception or KS1 and receive universal school meals for infant pupils, or are in KS2 and take a packed lunch – as this enables them to claim pupil premium.
