Pupil Premium

Pupil premium funding from the government is given to schools in England to improve education outcomes for disadvantaged pupils. Evidence shows that disadvantaged children generally face additional challenges in reaching their potential at school and often do not perform as well as other pupils.

It is provided for: 

• pupils who are eligible for free school meals (or have been eligible at any point in the past 6 years)

• pupils who are in care, have been adopted from care or who have left care

Click here to find out if your child is eligible for Free School Meals.

Pupil premium is not a personal budget for individual pupils and schools are not required to spend all of the allocated grant on eligible pupils alone.

How do we spend the Pupil Premium at TKA?

The aim of our Pupil Premium strategy is to improve the education outcomes for disadvantaged pupils, regardless of what labels they have, so that they are equipped with both the self-confidence and qualifications needed to thrive beyond TKA.

We recognise that first and foremost, disadvantaged pupils need an excellent teacher in every classroom. Effective professional development, recruitment and retention are essential in achieving this goal.

We understand that strength in English, Mathematics and reading is the foundation for success in other subjects, and so helping pupils to meet at least age expectations is a key aspect of the pupil premium strategy plan. 

We also recognise the importance of pupils having positive attitudes towards self and school, and these can be negatively impacted by a wide range of factors. We invest in trips, extra curricular activities as well as a wide range of support mechanisms and interventions to help pupils overcome their individual barriers to learning. 

The following principles underpin our approach to all types of interventions:

• intervention starts in the classroom, including in tutor groups

• effective interventions are not generic and catch-all but based on an accurate diagnosis of needs. i.e the right intervention for the right pupils at the right time

• the earlier a need can be identified, diagnosed and acted upon, the better

• intelligent tutoring systems and other technologies can play an important role in significantly improving outcomes over time

Here are just a few examples of how the Pupil Premium is spent at TKA:

• Staff professional development costs for whole-school priorities such as reading

• Overstaffing in maths to facilitate smaller group sizes

• Staffing and resourcing costs for running interventions such as group reading

• Subscriptions to online learning platforms

• Educational resources such as calculators, revision guides and reading books

• Equipment, including £2 personal annual budget to spend at the TKA equipment shop (10p per item!)

• Wellbeing and self-esteem building interventions such as mentoring

• Part-funding of trips and other enrichment activities

• Part-funding of Chromebooks

• Breakfast club

• Careers support

• Educational Welfare Officer

• Family Liaison Officer

• Educational Psychologist

Service Pupil Premium

Schools receive a small amount of funding (£310 per child) for pupils with parents in the UK armed forces. The purpose of the funding is to provide pastoral support during challenging times and to help mitigate the negative impact on service children of family mobility or parental deployment. 

Pupils attract the Service pupil premium if they meet one of the following criteria:

• one of their parents is serving in the regular armed forces (including pupils with a parent who is on full commitment as part of the full time reserve service)

• they have been registered as a ‘service child’ on a school census in the past 6 years

• one of their parents died whilst serving in the armed forces and the pupil receives a pension under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme or the War Pensions Scheme

Service personnel with children (reception to year 11) in state schools in England should notify the school office of your children’s service status to ensure they are recorded prior to the next autumn census (first Thursday in October) in order to qualify for Service pupil premium.

Please let us know if you believe your child would benefit from support due to the impact of family mobility or parental deployment.

Pupil Premium Strategy Statement

For more detail about our current 3-year Pupil Premium Strategy (2022-25), please see below for our published statement.