Pupil Premium

At St Bernadette Catholic Primary we are committed to ensuring that each individual pupil receives the very best education allowing them to reach their full potential academically and socially.

Our ethos and learning culture ensures that we have the highest expectations and that we continually strive to ensure that no pupil is left behind.

When deciding how to spend the pupil premium grant it is important that we look at the potential barriers to learning faced by pupil premium pupils in the context of our school. The reasons for underachievement are many and varied and could include; less support at home, leading to reduced appreciation of the value of education; social and emotional difficulties due to complex family situations or attendance and punctuality difficulties. Each child entitled to the pupil premium grant is unique in their situation and our response to their needs must reflect this.

With this in mind, we aim to build the capacity and expertise to enable us to provide a highly personalised programme of support in order to allow each child to reach his/her full potential.

Our key objective in using the pupil premium grant is to ensure that all children make good levels of progress in relation to their different starting points. We aim to ensure that our pupil premium children make progress in line with those children not in receipt of the pupil premium grant. Historically pupils at St. Bernadette achieve and attain well, often at levels higher than those expected nationally. However, there is still a pattern, of pupil premium pupils not attaining as well as those who are not entitled to the pupil premium grant. At St. Bernadette we look at the whole child and their differing needs to set realistic targets that take into account a range of barriers to learning such as special educational needs or social, economic and mental health needs.

We will ensure that:

• A high profile is given to Disadvantaged Pupils.
• All staff are accountable for the progress of Disadvantaged children.
• The progress and attainment of all Disadvantaged pupils is carefully tracked and analysed. We also make use of a wide range of educational research in order to decide how best to spend our funding to maximise the opportunities for our pupils.

Our funding priorities fall into the following areas:

• Improved Pupil Feedback through 1:1 pupil interviews: personalised feedback for progress
• Social and Emotional Support: ensuring that children are ready to learn, free from distraction. 1:1 support from our Social, emotional and mental health lead.
• Upskilling class teachers to ensure inclusive teaching
• Booster classes/ Collaborative Learning: providing the opportunity for pupils to work in smaller group.
• Additional provision for resources to provide specific resources to the individual needs of service family children and looked after children.

Pupil Premium is led by Mrs Reilly, Co-headteacher and monitored by our Co-chair, Jane Williams and governor Vanessa Bhogun.

Pupil Premium Strategy and Evaluations 22-25 Autumn 2024