What is Pupil Premium Funding?

The Pupil Premium is an allocation of additional funding provided to schools to support specific groups of children who are vulnerable to possible underachievement. These include pupils who are entitled to free school meals, those looked after by the local authority and those now adopted but formerly looked after. Since 2012, funding has been extended to include pupils who have been eligible for free school meals at any time within the last 6 years. Nationally, statistics have shown that students who are in receipt of FSM do less well than their peers in external exams. The aim of this money is to try to close that attainment gap. All schools are required to publish, on their websites, what funding they have received and how the money is being spent. Please refer below for details of how we spend the Pupil Premium at Merley First School.

Eligibility for Pupil Premium, and Impact of Funding Click on the links at the bottom of this page:

• A parent friendly introduction to Pupil Premium and Service Premium, including details of how to apply; Pupil Premium Grants Parent information pack
• An explanation of the purpose behind Pupil Premium funding, and information on how schools are funded. Government Pupil Premium Information

Primary Sports Funding

At Merley First School, we believe that physical education is a vital part of every child’s First School experiences, and physical well-being for every learner is given high priority within our School Aims.

We want to see every child develop and grow in physical confidence and dexterity, and participate in a range of physical educational opportunities, including competitive sport. Above all else, we aim for our children to develop an enjoyment of physical activity and an understanding of how to live a healthy lifestyle.

We are fortunate to have, in our school grounds, an excellent environment for outdoor physical education, and we offer a range of curricular and extra-curricular opportunities to inspire all of our children to participate fully.

We welcome the government’s commitment to sport in primary schools through the School Sport Premium. This funding is given to schools to promote sport as part of the Olympics ‘inspire a generation’ message.

We have used the documents published by the Ofsted and the DfE  to support us in assessing and auditing our provision of PE and identifying how to spend our Premium.

Schools are free to determine how best to use the funding to improve the quality and breadth of P.E. and sport provision, so that all pupils develop healthy lifestyles and reach the performance levels they are capable of.