The Pupil Premium is allocated to:

• children from low-income families who are currently known to be eligible for FSM (free school meals)
• children who have received Free School Meals in the last 6 years in both mainstream and non-mainstream settings
• children who have been ‘Looked After’ continuously for more than six months and children who have been adopted

The premium is provided in order to support these children in reaching their potential. The level of the premium has risen to £1,385 per child in 2022-23 and is set to rise in future. For Children Looked After and recently adopted children schools receive £2,410.
A premium was also introduced for children whose parents are currently serving in the armed forces; this was £320 for 2022-23. This service premium is designed to address the emotional and social well-being of these children.
The Government have used children entitled to Free School meals as an indicator for deprivation, and have deployed a fixed amount of money to schools per child, based on the number of children registered for Free School meals. This fixed amount of money will increase every year of the course of this current Parliament.

The Government are not dictating how schools should spend this money, but are clear that schools will need to employ the strategies that they know will support their children to increase their attainment, and ‘narrow the gap’. Schools will be accountable for narrowing the gap, and there is a planned reform to the school performance tables to include new measures that show how the attainment of children who receive the pupil premium compare with their peers. At Woodside we will be using the indicator of those eligible for Free School meals as our target children to ‘narrow the gap’ regarding attainment.