The pupil premium is an allocation of funding provided to schools to:

• raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils of all abilities to reach their potential;
• support children with parents in the regular armed forces;
• support children in care defined in the Children Act 1989 as one who is in the care of, or provided with accommodation by, an English local authority.

School Context

At Allington Primary School we have a whole school ethos of promoting learning to set high aspirations for all of our children. We pride ourselves in enabling them with skills to reach their full potential, academically and socially. In order to do this, we engage in a range of strategies to ensure challenge at an appropriate level and provide support to overcome barriers to learning. The strategies employed ensure that all disadvantaged pupils, regardless of their ability, are given appropriate support to move them on to their next steps of learning.

When making decisions on how to use our pupil premium funding effectively we have made use of a range of research, most prominently the Education Endowment Foundation’s Teaching and Learning Toolkit, which analyses the impact and value for money of a variety of interventions.

Effective strategies used include:

• Access to quality first teaching
• Effective deployment of teaching assistants
• Mastery learning
• One to one tuition
• Oral language interventions
• Parental involvement
• Reading comprehension strategies
• Small group tuition
• Social and emotional learning

We have embedded a robust system of assessment and monitoring and monitoring based on the use of Target Tracker data and termly pupil progress meetings which include all members of teaching and support staff to ensure that all pupils achieve at least expected progress. Pupils not making expected progress are rapidly identified and appropriate strategies are put in place. All disadvantaged pupils are highlighted in each pupil progress meeting, even if they are on-track in their learning, to ensure that they remain a constant focus. We evaluate the provision for those children eligible for the pupil premium grant, and the resulting impact, including for our most able.

On entry, all pupils are screened using Infant LanguageLink, which supports us in planning appropriate interventions to address low language levels in Year R.

Our Inclusion Manager works closely with parents to help mitigate the adverse effects of external factors, and to help increase parental aspirations and engagement.

The action plan detailing the allocation of the Pupil Premium Grant can be found in the strategy document below.