What do schools spend pupil premium on?

[FanciedAChangeToday]

If you receive it do your children directly benefit? Apart from free school meals I'm wondering what mine get that they wouldn't normally. Or is it that the school spends it on what they think is needed for the whole school? Which is great, just wondering

If you look on your DC’s school website they will have their pupil premium spending for the year publicised. It’s a legal requirement to do so.

your school should actually have details of this on their website.

Different schools use the money differently as their cohorts will be different

Maths & English intervention.
Subsidising music lessons or school trips, or revision guides, or laptops if needed, or school uniform.
Social skills sessions.
Summer school for new starters who need it most.

Can be any number of things,
. As PP have said there should be a document that says exactly what they spent it on last year.

Unlike other forms of funding, it doesn’t have to be allocated to a specific child. Schools do have to show that it is being used to close the gap between the PP and the non-pp children (if there is one).

I think Teen has got most of the common stuff in that list.

A range of things:

• maths and English intervention
• music lessons
• revision guides and texts
• duke of Edinburgh equipment and fees
• subsidies for trips
• equipment for school
• places on revision days
• school uniform
• mentoring and counsellors on site

Part of ours funds the pastoral team

Thanks for the replies. It is great to know what it is used for, had no idea. Will look on the schools website to see what we use ours for x

Some schools have changed their admissions policy to encourage more applications from children whose school place would be entitled to pupil premium.

Current rates are:

Between £935 - £2,300 per pupil per year depending on criteria and age of child. Children of service personnel - £300.

From gov.uk website (for 2018-2019):

"6. Terms on which PPG is allocated to schools
The grant may be spent in the following ways:

for the purposes of the school; that is, for the educational benefit of pupils registered at that school
for the benefit of pupils registered at other maintained schools or academies
on community facilities; for example, services whose provision furthers any charitable purpose for the benefit of pupils at the school or their families, or people who live or work in the locality in which the school is situated
The grant does not have to be completely spent by schools in the financial year beginning 1 April 2018; some or all of it may be carried forward to future financial years."

Does "for the benefit of pupils registered at other maintained schools or academies" mean a MAT can take the money from one school and give to another within the same trust?

I’m not sure if the answer to your question, Astro. It’s a very interesting one.

I would like to correct a couple of assumptions above. When Ofsted come they are very clear that PP money is to be targeted at “closing the gap” between the attainment of FSM children, other eligible children, and the rest. There is also a bank of evidence that now suggests strategies that work and those that have less impact. Therefore buying TA time but scattergunning it at the whole class does not work. Individual interventions tailored to the individual children is what they want. Ofsted look for clear evidence of the money being targeted and it being effective. Therefore D of E and school uniform wouldn’t be seen as effective in raising attainment. One of the best and cheapest ways is peer to peer mentoring.

The PP money doesn’t pay for FSM. Schools all have to account for the expenditure and how it has raised attainment for the PP children - not everyone else! I’m a pp governor and I live and breathe this! Many schools have been criticised by Ofsted for spending the pp money on things that have made no difference at all.

So, OP, you cannot demand that money is spent in such and such a way (some parents try to) but you can ask how well your child is progressing and how the money will be spent on closing the gap, if there is one. If there isn’t then you may have to accept that some of the money will go into other interventions so other pp children close the gap.

Yes BubblesBuddy, I believe you are correct that the PP money must benefit the children for whom it has been paid - closing the gap - being the correct expression. However, at short notice, I could not find that detail to quote in the gov document. I have experience of a school where I felt the PP money was being spent incorrectly.

Can an admin charge for administering this money be taken by the school?

I know an admin charge can be applied against sixth form bursary money.

BubblesBuddy
But things like enrichment do help with children's learning.
For a disadvantaged child who has no outlet out of school, a positive enrichment activity where they are gaining praise for positive things, volunteering and taking responsibility, picking up a skill (often for PP students that can be done in you'd through the art or DT departments etx), a sport through PE means the student is actually developing a lot of the attributes required to be successful in school.

If disadvantage is complex then we have to be more nuanced on how we tackle it, not assume that sticking a child in 4 hours of intervention a week when they could be in an options subject ticks a box.

On a university thread, one of the main things thay came up was that disadvantaged students tend not to apply, there's a cultural capital gap, they don't have the same range of enrichment that might make them consider university or get into a good university.

Surely it's about knowing your students and your cohort and making decisions about how to spend PP money for the children that are in front of you, rather than some idea that there's a bank of 'do this for PP' as if they are some homogeneous mass that all have the same barriers?