Pupil Premium Funding

You may be aware that schools receive additional funding which is used to give significant support for those pupils who are eligible for Free School Meals (FSM), Looked after children (LAC) , Post looked after children (Post LAC) and also children of Service families. This is currently a set amount and is awarded for a further six years once eligibility has ceased (five years for Service children). As you can imagine receiving that makes quite a significant difference to how we can best support these children and I would encourage you to check either online (see below) or via the School Office, if you think you might be eligible.

Online Free School Meal Eligibility Checking Hampshire County Council Catering Services (HC3S) has an online service so parents can check their eligibility for free school meals themselves.

This self-service option is available at: https://www.cloudforedu.org.uk/ofsm/hants

Please note that the criteria for free school meals is the same, regardless of method of checking eligibility, but for the online service, all you need to do is enter your name, national insurance number or asylum number, your address and your child’s details. Press ‘submit’ and you will find out if you are eligible.

If your result comes back ‘found’, this means your child is eligible for free school meals and the system automatically tells your school. For more information, check out the web address above, or phone 023 8062 7738.

Recovery Premium Funding

The recovery premium grant is part of the government’s package of funding to support pupils whose education has been impacted by coronavirus (COVID-19).

It is a time-limited grant providing over £300m of additional funding for state-funded schools in the 2021 to 2022 academic year and £1bn across the 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024 academic years.

It is focused on pupil premium eligible pupils and pupils in specialist settings such as special schools, special units and pupil referral units (PRUs). This is because of the additional impact of the pandemic on these students.

However, schools can use it to deliver evidence-based approaches for supporting any pupil based on an assessment of individual need.

Pupil eligibility

Recovery premium allocations for mainstream schools will be based on pupil premium eligibility. This includes:

• pupils who are eligible for free school meals (FSM), including eligible children of families who have no recourse to public funds (NRPF)
• pupils who have been eligible for FSM at any point in the last 6 years
• children looked after by local authorities, referred to as looked-after children (LAC), and children previously looked after by local authorities, referred to as previously looked-after children (PLAC)

Using recovery premium funding

Like the pupil premium, schools can:

• spend the recovery premium on a wider cohort of pupils than those who are eligible for the funding
• direct recovery premium spending where they think the need is greatest

Details of the spending of this funding is outlined in our pupil premium strategy statement below.