Pupil Premium
You may be aware the Government is providing schools with additional ‘Pupil Premium’ funding for each child that currently receives, (or has in the past 6 years received) Free School Meals (FSM) or children who have a parent/carer in the services or children in care. These children are listed by Ashton Gate Primary as ‘EVER6’ children, and for the duration of their primary years, the school will be given above the usual sums of money to support their education. If you think you might qualify for Free School Meals please see a member of the administrative team to apply so this funding can be accessed for your child.
Ashton Gate Primary Governors and senior leaders have determined how Ashton Gate Primary's Pupil Premium/EVER6 grant will be spent. Details of how Ashton Gate Primary uses Pupil Premium funding and the impact it has can be found in our Pupil Premium Strategy Statement.
Service Pupil Premium
Service pupil premium is additional funding for schools who have pupils whose parents serving in the armed forces. It has been combined into pupil premium payments to make it easier for schools to manage their spending.
Pupils in state-funded schools in England attract the service pupil premium grant, at the rate of £340 per eligible pupil in financial year 2024-25, if they meet one or more 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 - this includes pupils with a parent who is in the armed forces of another nation and is stationed in England
- registered as a ‘service child’ on any school census in the past 6 years
- one of their parents died while serving in the armed forces and the pupil receives a pension under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme or the War Pensions Scheme
This funding is primarily to enable schools to offer pastoral support and help mitigate the negative impact of family mobility or parental deployment.
How do we use our Service Pupil Premium ?
We use the Service Pupil Premium Grant funding to ensure our service children receive the highest quality of education to enable them to become active, socially responsible citizens of the future. Our intention is that all children, irrespective of their background or the challenges they face, make good progress and achieve high attainment across all subject areas. The focus of our strategy is to support service family children to achieve that goal.
Children from military backgrounds often require additional support during particularly challenging times. At Ashton Gate, it is our aim to ensure they have access to a wide range of resources and interventions to support them in reaching their full potential. High-quality teaching is at the heart of our approach, with a focus on areas in which disadvantaged children require the most support.
Our funding is used to;
- monitor service children’s progress compared to the wider school population to ensure that they learn, develop and achieve their own expected level of progress through intervention strategies and support are put into place to support their learning
- provide pastoral support and guidance for families
- provide opportunities to work with individuals to build social skills, self-esteem and develop positive attitudes to learning, thus raising academic attainment
- access to extra-curricular activities to enable service children to take part in activities that may not have been available to them due to the absence of one of their key adults.
As with everything we do at school, the measures put into place do make a positive difference. They help to ensure that our service children become tolerant, caring and well-rounded individuals with the skills to enable them to learn, develop and progress. Primarily, the measures we have put in place help service children to access peers/adults that they feel they can approach and talk to who can reassure, help and, if necessary, advise. This enables them to achieve and progress without any disadvantage due to parental service.