Pupil premium

Pupil Premium is additional funding provided by the Department for Education (DfE) to enhance the education of disadvantaged young people.  The funding is allocated to schools for children from Reception to Year 11 who have registered for free school meals in the last six years, are in care or who have parents in the armed forces.

Pupil Premium funding is spent in an integrated and targeted way on a wide range of interventions and strategies to ensure that entitled students receive the opportunity for additional support and access to all learning opportunities in order to improve outcomes. Strategies that we use are drawn from the Education Endowment Foundation Toolkit and are known for their positive impact. In addition to the EEF Toolkit we have also drawn strategies from Transforming Tees Higher Achievement Research with a particular focus on improving parental engagement.

Typically, students eligible for Pupil Premium funding at Freebrough Academy face the following barriers:

• Some students have low levels of attendance and find travelling to school challenging
• Some of our most vulnerable students find the transition from primary to secondary education extremely difficult
• Problems with completing work independently at home due to lack of ICT facilities or responsibilities caring for siblings
• Low aspirations due to high local and regional levels of unemployment and geographical isolation due to poor transport links
• Often poor mental health within home setting in addition to low levels of literacy and numeracy
• Low levels of parental engagement due to parent or carer’s own negative experiences of education
• Higher levels of anti-social behaviour both in the Academy and the local community exacerbated by a reduction in local Police and Anti-Social Behaviour Team services.