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.
In 2023/34, schools and academies receive £1035 per eligible secondary aged pupil and £2530 for looked after and recently adopted children. This is paid directly to the academy in four quarterly instalments and we track how this funding is spent and what impact this has on the performance of our scholars. The fund is a separate grant and is therefore largely unaffected by the introduction of the national funding formula for schools. In order to ensure that pupil premium is focused on effective approaches to raising the educational attainment of disadvantaged pupils, we use pupil premium in line with the ‘menu of approaches’ set by the Department for Education and the 3-tiered approach developed by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). This helps ensure our allocated funding is spent in three main areas including supporting high-quality teaching, providing targeted academic support and tacking non-academic barriers to academic success such as difficulties in attendance, behaviour and social and emotional wellbeing. Research suggests that disadvantaged scholars on average achieve half a grade less than those from non-disadvantaged backgrounds nationally. At DCA in 2022, disadvantaged pupils achieved an average P8 score of +0.04 meaning our disadvantaged achieved higher than all disadvantaged scholars of similar ability nationally. In 2022, our disadvantaged scholars performed above their non-disadvantaged peers which bucks the national trend.