Pupil Premium

Statement of Intent 

All members of staff and the governing body accept responsibility for ‘socially disadvantaged’ pupils and are committed to meeting their pastoral, social and academic needs within a caring and nurturing environment. Our intention is that all pupils, irrespective of their background or the challenges they face, make good progress and achieve high attainment across all subject areas. The focus of our pupil premium strategy is to support disadvantaged pupils to achieve these goals, including progress for those who are already high attainers.

We expect that each child will develop a love for learning and acquire skills and abilities commensurate with fulfilling their potential, now and in the future.

We will consider the challenges faced by disadvantaged pupils, including those who have a social worker or are young carers. The support we have outlined in this statement is also intended to support their needs, regardless of whether they are disadvantaged or not.

In line with the Strategic School Improvement Plan, a significant proportion of the funding will be spent on supporting children with accessing the core knowledge and skills needed to succeed in English and Mathematics.

Without the skills, knowledge and expertise needed in these core areas, there will be a barrier to accessing the full curriculum. High-quality teaching is at the heart of our approach, with a focus on areas in which disadvantaged pupils require the most support. Our strategy will follow a continuous, cyclical four-step approach:

1. Diagnosis of our children’s challenges and needs

2. Strong evidence which underpins our chosen strategy for support

3. Implementation of our chosen strategy

4. Monitoring and evaluation

This is proven to have the greatest impact on closing the disadvantage attainment gap and at the same time will benefit the non-disadvantaged pupils in our school. Implicit in the intended outcomes detailed below, is the intention that non-disadvantaged pupils’ attainment will be sustained and improved alongside progress for their disadvantaged peers.

Our Pupil Premium strategy is also integral to wider school plans for education recovery following the pandemic, notably in its targeted support for pupils whose education has been worst affected, including non-disadvantaged pupils.

Children’s key stages of development are also a focus at The Discovery School. Early identification of any barriers to learning is paramount. The Inclusion Team and the Social, Emotional and Mental Health Team will support staff in identifying how children can be best supported and will plan accordingly.

Our approach will be responsive to common challenges and individual needs, rooted in robust diagnostic assessment and quality first teaching underpinned by best practice and recognised research. To ensure our strategy is effective, we will:

 · ensure disadvantaged pupils are challenged in the work that they’re set

· act early to intervene at the point need is identified

· adopt a whole school approach in which all staff take responsibility for disadvantaged pupils’ outcomes and raise expectations of what they can achieve