Pupil Premium
Statutory Information
For full details and information about pupil premium funding for schools please visit:
What is ‘Pupil Premium Funding’?
Pupil Premium funding was introduced in April 2011 by the coalition government with the specific purpose of raising the attainment of disadvantaged pupils and closing the gap between them and their peers.
Schools and academies receive £955 per eligible secondary aged pupil and £2345 (increased from £2300 in 2019) for looked after and recently adopted children. We track how this funding is spent and what impact this has on the performance of our students. The fund is a separate grant and is therefore largely unaffected by the introduction of the national funding formula for schools. For 2021-22, the premium funding remains at £955, paid directly to the academy in four quarterly instalments.
What is the national performance picture compared to ours at DCA?
The national performance gap, based upon data across England, remains an area of concern for the Department for Education.
In March 2018, Jon Andrews, the deputy head of research for the Education Policy Institute published findings that stated disadvantaged pupils on average achieve half a grade less than those from non-disadvantaged backgrounds nationally (-0.5 grades for those currently eligible for free school meals (FSM) and -0.4 grades for those who have been eligible at some point in the last six years (Ever 6)).
At DCA in 2020, disadvantaged pupils achieved an average P8 score of +0.53. I.e. more than a third of a grade higher than all pupils of similar ability nationally. This achievement is all the more notable however when compared with the 2019 national average P8 score for disadvantaged pupils, of -0.41, and also the 2019 national average P8 score for all other (non-disadvantaged) pupils of +0.13. So disadvantaged pupils at DCA perform above their non-disadvantaged peers nationally and significantly well above those disadvantaged nationally.