What is the Pupil Premium?

The Pupil Premium provides additional funding on top of the main funding an Academy receives. It is targeted at students from disadvantaged backgrounds to ensure they benefit from the same opportunities as students from less deprived families.

Since September 2014, the premium will be worth £935 and goes to students who are currently registered for Free school Meals (FSM) and those who have received FSM in the past six years (known as Ever6/E6). Students in care, even for one day, also continue to qualify for the Pupil Premium.

How the Pupil Premium is spent is monitored closely with all Academies/schools accountable for the impact of the money spent. At The Excel Academy we pride ourselves on utilising the Pupil Premium to support our students with a specific focus on Literacy, Transition, Behaviour / Attendance and Achievement, maximising the life opportunities for all students.

Why is there a pupil premium?

Students who have been eligible for Free School Meals at any point in their Academy / school career have consistently lower educational attainment than those who have never been eligible. In 2009-10 GCSE statistics showed that around a third of students who have been on Free School Meals in the previous six years achieved five or more A*- C grades (now grades 9-5) GCSE grades 2022: The 9-1 boundaries explained – BBC News, compared to more than two thirds of their fellow students.

How many pupils at The Excel Academy are eligible for the Pupil Premium?

Currently 33% of students at The Excel Academy are eligible for the Pupil Premium

How will the impact of the spending of the Pupil Premium be measured?

The Excel Academy demonstrates unwavering commitment to closing the attainment gap. We target interventions forensically and have robust tracking systems in place to establish what is making a difference and what is not.

To monitor progress on attainment, measures will be included in the performance tables that will capture the achievement of students covered by the Pupil Premium. At The Excel Academy, the usual cycle of data collection and the monitoring and tracking of the cohort’s attainment, will be used to inform student progress and enable the early identification of need, support and appropriate intervention.

Key principles for using Pupil Premium

1. The Excel Academy carefully ring-fences the funding at the beginning of the academic year so that it was spent on a targeted group of students.
2. The Excel Academy never confuses eligibility for the pupil premium with low ability, and focuses on supporting our disadvantaged pupils to achieve the highest levels.
3. The Excel Academy thoroughly analyses which pupils are underachieving, particularly in English, mathematics and EBACC subjects, and why.
4. The Excel Academy draws upon evidence from our own and others’ experience to allocate the funding to the activities that were most likely to have an impact on improving achievement.
5. We allocate our best teachers to teach intervention groups to improve mathematics and English, or re-deploy support teachers who have a good track record in raising attainment in those subjects.
6. The Academy uses achievement data frequently to check whether interventions or techniques are working and make adjustments accordingly, rather than just using the data retrospectively to see if something had worked.
7. The Academy ensures that a designated senior leader, a Vice Principal, plus the Principal, have a clear overview of how the funding is being allocated and the difference it is making to the outcomes for pupils termly.
8. The Academy also ensures that class and subject teachers know which pupils are eligible for the pupil premium so that they can take responsibility for accelerating their progress.
9. The projects we have set up are to tackle a range of issues, e.g. attendance, behaviour, factors outside of the Academy, professional INSET on FSM pupils, effective teaching and learning, strong careers information, advice and guidance, literacy support, targeted support, good facilities for supported self-study, further enrichment.