We have high aspirations and ambitions for our children. We strongly believe that all children have the right to achieve their best and realise their potential regardless of their family income.

Background to Pupil Premium Funding The pupil premium is a government initiative that targets extra money at pupils from deprived backgrounds. Research shows that pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds underachieve compared to their non-disadvantaged peers. The premium is provided to enable these pupils to be supported to reach their potential. The Government has used pupils entitled to free school meals (FSM), looked after children and service children as indicators of disadvantage, and have provided a fixed amount of money for schools per pupil based on the number of pupils registered for FSM over a rolling six year period. At Mead Vale we shall be using this funding to ensure that children that qualify for this funding make best progress in line with those nationally, including the most able.

Pupil Premium and Disadvantage Approach at Mead Vale 

Money has been ring-fenced and used to benefit all pupil premium pupils. We use research evidence (Education Endowment Foundation 2015) and careful monitoring of the impact of our spending to help us to decide the best way to spend our pupil premium grant. Our chair and vice chair of governors take responsibility for holding the senior leadership team to account for the best use of this funding.

Our current children premium strategy plan work towards achieving those objectives by:

• Improving attendance of our disadvantaged children

• Improving the academic outcomes for our disadvantaged children

• Planning academic and pastoral interventions and support that disadvantaged children will receive that will close the gaps between their peers or exceed their peers

The key principles of the strategy are:

A school culture of supporting children to manage their emotions and be self-regulators – our trauma-informed practice creates a shared understanding and common language about how to create a welcoming, caring, respectful and safe school. All children benefit from learning environments that are: calm, predictable and supportive. Building children’s’ resilience when dealing with challenges, whether academic or emotional is a priority across the school. This growth mind-set approach allows us to support children to find new ways of viewing challenges and setbacks, helping them to believe that even if they struggle with certain skills, their abilities aren't set in stone.

Whole-school ethos of attainment for all – we have an ethos of attainment for all children and avoid stereotyping disadvantaged children as all are facing similar barriers or have less potential to succeed.

Addressing behaviour and attendance – we ensure effective behaviour strategies are in place, respond quickly to poor attendance and provide strong social and emotional support, including working with families.

Quality first teaching for all – we deliver ‘quality first teaching’ and provide consistently high standards by setting expectations, monitoring performance and sharing best practice.

Meeting individual learning needs - we identify each children’s challenges and interests and seek the best strategies to help each children make the next step in their learning. We provide individual support for specific learning needs and group support for children with similar needs.

Deploying staff effectively - devolve responsibility to frontline staff, use our best teachers to work with children who need the most support and train teaching assistants to effectively support children’s learning

Impact driven and responsive to evidence - we effectively use data, and other evidence, to identify children’s learning needs, review progress regularly and address underperformance quickly. We have manageable assessment for learning systems, which provide clear feedback for children.

Ambitious leadership have high aspirations and lead by example - all staff are accountable for raising attainment and do not accept low aspirations and variable performance. We are aware of best practice within, and beyond, the school and invest in staff training.

Latest Spending

Since the pupil premium funding was introduced we have seen an improvement in outcomes for our children both in engagement and achievement. We also continue to learn which approaches are having greatest impact. Here are our latest spending plans: