Pupil Premium Funding
What it is, how it is used and the impact
What it is
The Pupil Premium is government funding that comes into school based on the numbers of children from:
- low income families (eligible for free school meals)
- children from service families
- children who have been “looked after” by a Local Authority continuously for more than six months.
How it is used
Schools decide how to spend the money to meet needs and close the gaps that children may have in their academic, personal, emotional or family needs; these can be long or short term needs. This money enables us to use additional resources (items and people) and provide opportunities to enable children to achieve their personal potential.
At our school, Pupil Premium is used in a variety of ways, including providing additional learning support so children can have dedicated interventions, support and encouragement in learning; purchasing specific resource which will support the individual child; opportunities for wrap around care that supports learning and enrichment for the child.
The school must evaluate the impact of provision, which is undertaken each term for data, personal and social and Mental Health and Well-being.
Is your child eligible for extra funding?
Your child may be entitled to some extra funding which can help them get the most out of school. The money can be used in many ways:
- To provide extra learning support to help children improve their academic potential, especially in Maths and English, and also their social and communication skills.
- To provide extra resources, eg Computers, Access to Funzone
- In addition, children with Pupil Premium funding are entitled to a daily school meal. Families choose if they want to take up this offer.
You can apply for this Pupil Premium funding whatever age your child. (It is also called Free School Meal funding as it helps pay for your child’s FSM in KS2). If you think that your income is low and you receive any of the benefits listed below, please apply:
- Income support
- Income-based Job Seekers Allowance
- Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
- The guaranteed element of State Pension Credit
- Support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
- Child Tax Credit (provided you’re not also entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual gross income of no more than £16,190)
- Working Tax Credit run-on - paid for 4 weeks after you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit
- Universal Credit - if you apply on or after 1 April 2018 your household income must be less than £7,400 a year (after tax and not including any benefits you get)
Ash Grange Pupil Premium Strategy Statement 2025-26
This statement details our school’s use of pupil premium funding to help improve the attainment of our disadvantaged pupils.
It outlines our pupil premium strategy, how we intend to spend the funding in this academic year and the effect that last year’s spending of pupil premium had within our school.
School overview
Detail | Data |
School name | Ash Grange Nursery and Primary School |
Number of pupils in school | 265 |
Proportion (%) of pupil premium eligible pupils | 15% |
Academic year/years that our current pupil premium strategy plan covers | 2024-25 |
Date this statement was published | July 2025 |
Date on which it will be reviewed | July 2026 – annually |
Statement authorised by | Marie Curtis - Headteacher |
Pupil premium lead | Marie Curtis - Headteacher |
Governor / Trustee lead | Mrs Kirstie Jones |
Funding overview
Detail | Amount |
Pupil premium funding allocation this academic year | £82,756 |
Pupil premium funding carried forward from previous years (enter £0 if not applicable) | £0 |
Total budget for this academic year | £82,756 |
Part A: Pupil premium strategy plan
Statement of intent
We want every child to achieve their full potential and value themselves for their skills, talents and abilities. Through our ethos, aims, curriculum and relationships with the children and families we demonstrate our valuing and appreciating all for who they are, not what they have. Our intention is that all pupils, irrespective of their background or the challenges they face, make good progress and achieve their highest attainment across all subject areas. The focus of our pupil premium strategy is to support disadvantaged pupils to overcome barriers and achieve that goal. High-quality teaching is at the heart of our approach, with a focus on areas in which disadvantaged pupils require the most support and targeted interventions. 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. To achieve these objectives, we have adopted the tiered approach recommended by the EEF, which places the greatest focus on promoting high quality teaching, supported by academic interventions and wider non-teaching strategies. The first barrier is access to education for families, to make the most of learning opportunities within the Nursery and Reception Classes. To then develop the oral skills to communicate wants, needs, interests and learning. To learn the skills of reading and writing, that enable access to all learning for life. To build aspirations for the short and long term and a self-belief that goals can be achieved. To have the pastoral support to identify needs and develop the strategies to gain the support to overcome these and thrive. To develop emotional health and well-being, that builds a sense of self, relationships with others and resilience for life’s journey. |
Challenges
This details the key challenges to achievement that we have identified among our disadvantaged pupils.
Challenge number | Detail of challenge |
1 | Assessments, observations, and discussions with families and pupils indicate underdeveloped oral language skills and vocabulary gaps among many disadvantaged pupils. These are evident from Nursery to Reception through to KS2 and in general, are more prevalent among our disadvantaged pupils than their peers. |
2 | Assessments, observations, and discussions with pupils suggest disadvantaged pupils generally have greater difficulties with spelling and grammar than their peers. This negatively impacts their development as readers and writers. |
3 | Internal and external assessments indicate that maths attainment among disadvantaged pupils is significantly below that of non-disadvantaged pupils, especially due to vocabulary gaps and mental maths knowledge of strategies and agility. |
4 | Our assessments, observations and discussions with pupils and families have identified social and emotional issues for many pupils, gaps in experience that they can draw on with writing and learning across the curriculum areas. These challenges particularly affect disadvantaged pupils, which directly impacts attainment. |
5 | Our assessments and observations indicate that absenteeism is negatively impacting disadvantaged pupils’ progress. |
6 | Our knowledge of families identifies financial hardship which can also impact Mental Health and Well-being of children and adults |
7 | Aspirational views of parents and children in homes with long term joblessness. |
Intended outcomes
This explains the outcomes we are aiming for by the end of our current strategy plan, and how we will measure whether they have been achieved.
Intended outcome | Success criteria |
Provide additional support for specific areas of learning to raise children’s confidence and attainment in English and/or | Pupils transfer skills learnt during interventions/tutoring to enable them to work towards achieving expected levels or higher as well as developing their confidence to become independent learners. |
Help children to prepare for learning well with breakfast and focused before school activities. | Children are ready to learn so greater progress made each day. Improved attendance. |
Improve Attendance rates of Pupil Premium children | Improved attendance rates, enables the children to be at school to learn, make greater progress and close gaps in attainment |
Provide enrichment resources that enables equality to build self-esteem and give greater access to learning. Including resources in the home e.g. Chrome books, workbooks, reading books | Improved progress rates and reduction in attainment gaps. |
Provide enrichment opportunities during the day, before and after school and in the holidays to provide cultural capital and close social/economic gaps | Build self-esteem, give greater access to learning which will improve learning behaviours, progress rates and help reduce attainment gaps. |
Provide EMWB support for those pupils who are in need to overcome needs and be ready to learn. | Pupils are supported emotionally and psychologically and show a greater degree of engagement in learning and school life in general. |
Support parents/carers to manage own needs and support their children to be at school and achieve their potential | Improved attendance. Greater self-regulation by children and adults. Children achieve their potential |
Activity in this academic year
This details how we intend to spend our pupil premium (and recovery premium funding) this academic year to address the challenges listed above.
Teaching (for example, CPD, recruitment and retention)
Activity | Evidence that supports this approach | Challenge number(s) addressed |
Little Wandle Phonics Program
Ongoing CPD for this Spelling Program Training for staff, to be able to run programme for Year upper KS1 and KS2 | Phonics | Toolkit Strand | Education Endowment Foundation | EEF 2025 Data: EYFS GLD 74% Children not achieving the GLD have targeted intervention to catch up from Year 1 Year 1 Phonics pass 90% Children not achieving the Y1 phonics expected standard have targeted intervention to catch up in Y2 End of Year 6 Reading results: Expected 90%/Greater depth 40% End of Year 6 Writing results: Expected 77% Greater depth 13% Children not achieving national average in Key stage 2, Years 3 to 6, are targeted each year. | 1, 2, 4 |
Improve children's mental maths skills so that all children can apply these rapidly to support problem solving ability in maths | End of Year 6 Maths results: Expected 90%/Greater depth23% Children not achieving national average in Key stage 2, Years 3 to 6, are targeted each year. | 3 |
CPD training related to Cornerstones Curriculum, Subject Leader training to develop school offer related to needs and interests of the children and the school ethos and aims. | Continue to embed a rich, skills-based curriculum that is tailored to the needs of all pupils, where children learn through first-hand experiences. This promotes accelerated progress and increases attainment for those children considered most vulnerable | 5 |
Targeted academic support (for example, tutoring, one-to-one support structured interventions)
Activity | Evidence that supports this approach | Challenge number(s) addressed |
1a) Additional Learning Assistant support – each class has 1 fulltime assistant in addition to the Class teacher/LA to run intervention programmes as appropriate to the pupil Shine Booster 3x a week intervention Programme, PIXL interventions, Third-Space Learning and Speech and language support; LA and LSA interventions for catch up. | Half termly data tracking within school, alongside termly PiXL comparative data shows that the children make better than expected rates of progress with the support in place. | 1, 2, 3, 4, |
1b) Additional Resources including workbooks for home, recognition rewards for reading, writing and maths achievement; Fountain Pens for handwriting reward. | https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports/digital Ethos of all children treated the same and given the same opportunities, supports self-esteem and removes basic barriers to learning in resources. These resources become part of the home environment to promote learning and achievement to all.
Government support of technology with allocation of Chrome Books | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 |
1c) Additional Learning Opportunities including WOW for project launch, LAMDA, TWA, Music Teacher, Speech Therapist, Occupational Therapist, Rotary Club day out, Swimming lessons. | These events overcome barriers and enable children to embed learning on concrete experiences, which inspire. The children’s writing and learning progress overall is accelerated by these experiences and can be tracked through progress and attainment results. | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, |
Wider strategies (for example, related to attendance, behaviour, wellbeing)
Activity | Evidence that supports this approach | Challenge number(s) addressed |
2a) Extended provision at Funzone – all Pupil Premium children have the option to attend 2 breakfast or 1 after school slot per week, free of charge. | Rates of attendance have improved year on year through the targeted intervention. 2022-23: 94.2%, 2023-24: 94.7%, 2024-25 95.1%
Additionally, this helps children prepare for learning so make greater progress (See 1 above) | 6. 7, 8. |
2b) Dedicated admin Assistant 30% of weekly time Tracking and response to absence has consistent practice Resources to improve attendance – monthly bands and end of year awards automated truancy call | 5, 6 | |
2c) Support for mental health and wellbeing of children, including Counselling, Young Carer Support Groups, ELSA, Day to Day provision and Me Time Resources. staff CPD to mentor a MHWB lead to distribute leadership of provision. participation in a Surrey initiative to gain mental health and well being provision status award. Purchase of an Early Years program of study "Think Equal" to develop positive habits from the earliest opportunity. Premises development of a MHWB room | Providing MHWB activities, support children to overcome EHMW challenges. The children can attend school and focus on learning to make full potential. Nobel laureate James Heckman found that SEL taught in early years not only has long term (into midlife) positive effects on crime, employment, health, cognitive and non-cognitive skills for the participant (Heckman and Karapakula 2019), but also benefits those around them (Heckman and Karapakula 2019b) https://thinkequal.org/about-us/our-story/research-and-evidence/
| 5, 6, 7, 8 |
2d) Support for mental health and wellbeing of parents/carers and support with learning at home. Parent workshops, Parent Support Group, Hampers at Christmas, Food Bank support, Signposting and Counselling. | Providing MHWB activities, enables parents to be available to support the EHWB and learning needs of their child. The children can attend school and focus on learning to make full learning potential. | 6, 7, 8 |
2 e) School will continue to offer parent workshops to support engagement and increase parents' knowledge to enable them to support home learning and address targets in reports. | Providing learning and support for parents enables them to support their child with homework, to value learning in the short and long term. The children can then achieve their full learning potential. | 7, 8 |
Part B: Review of outcomes in the previous academic year
Pupil premium strategy outcomes - This details the impact that our pupil premium activity had on pupils in the 2023-24 academic year.
Impact |
Attendance improved for PP children to 89.8% (95.1 not PP children) |
Key Stage 2 Results 24-25 for Pupil Premium Children – 9 children
55% achieved combined in Reading, Writing and Maths; 11% achieved higher level in Reading, Writing and Maths
Average score in reading 106
Average score in maths 105
Externally provided programmes
Please include the names of any non-DfE programmes that you purchased in the previous academic year. This will help the Department for Education identify which ones are popular in England
Programme | Provider |
All curriculum areas | PiXL Club |
Writing | Write Stuff; Squiggle into Wiggle |
Spelling | Spelling Shed |
Maths | White Rose Maths Scheme |
- Ash Grange
- Nursery and Primary School,
- Ash Church Road,
- Ash,
- Surrey,
- GU12 6LX,
- office@ash-grange.surrey.sch.uk
- 01252 328589