Our vision, as a school with a Christian ethos, is founded on The Parable of the Sower (Mark 4: 3-9), where through God’s love, we are the rich soil where seeds flourish and roots grow. This is the foundation of our motto, Everyone is equal: everyone deserves the best.
As a result, our Pupil Premium strategy is designed with the ultimate objective of overcoming barriers to achievement for our disadvantaged students and ensuring that every disadvantaged student leaves us with meaningful and ambitious next steps open to them.
Research shows that students who are considered ‘disadvantaged’ because of their socio-economic circumstances are at risk of doing less well in school than their peers who have more positive soci- economic circumstances. The government uses eligibility for free school meals as a socio-economic measure and provides additional funding for schools to use to support students who may be at risk of underachievement due to disadvantage.
Schools receive a payment known as ‘Pupil Premium Grant’ (PPG), for each child who is either currently registered for Free School Meals (FSM) or has received FSM in one or more of the previous six years. Pupil Premium Grant is also received for students who have been in continuous care for six months or more and for children whose parents/carers are in the armed services.
In 2021/2022 academic year, 33.3% of students at St Mary’s High School are eligible for the Pupil Premium. This resulted in the headline allocation of funding that St Mary’s received as Pupil Premium Grant during the academic year 2021/22 was £342,845.
Our Pupil Premium strategy works towards achieving these objectives through a focus on:
- Delivering a challenging curriculum that enables disadvantaged students to overcome gaps in prior learning and achieve the highest grades.
- High-quality professional development is invested in, so that teachers are able to pitch lessons that meet all students’ needs and respond to gaps in learning.
- Rigorously monitoring progress so that we are able to identify barrier and gaps in learning, and respond to these.
- Targeted Academic Support is deployed for our students, in order to close gaps in learning.
- Additional learning resources are provided for disadvantaged students in order to ensure that they can access the curriculum.
- Maintaining and nurturing ambitions by supporting disadvantaged students to identify their ambitions and understand the choices open to them to reach these.
- Developing cultural capital by offering our disadvantaged students opportunities beyond the curriculum, which broaden their experiences.
- Minimise barriers to learning by providing inclusive and bespoke pastoral support for our disadvantaged students, in response to individual barriers to learning.
The key principles of this strategy are that:
- Improving the achievement of our disadvantaged students is vital to opening up opportunities for them in life,
- We draw on research evidence and evidence from our own experience to allocate funding to activities that are most likely to maximise achievement,
- By improving the practice of teachers and support staff, we can improve the quality of learning for disadvantaged students,
- We never confuse eligibility for the pupil premium grant with low ability, and instead focus on supporting our disadvantaged students to achieve the highest level.
- All activities within this strategy should be responsive, targeted or bespoke to the needs of our disadvantaged students.
- Robust and rigorous monitoring and evaluation is vital to ensuring that the intended outcomes within this strategy are achieved.
