What is the Pupil Premium Grant?
The Pupil Premium Grant (PPG) is additional funding given to schools to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils and closing the gap between the highest and lowest achieving pupils nationally. Pupil Premium support is also directed towards supporting children and young people with parents in the regular armed forces. Disadvantaged pupils in years 7 to 11 recorded as Ever 6 FSM receive £1,005 per pupil. Children adopted from care or who have left care, referred to as post-LAC, receive £2,530 per pupil.
To find out more, visit the Education and Skills Funding Agency website on https://www.gov.uk/education/school-and-academy-funding
Pupil Premium Strategy
Pupil premium funding is allocated to City of London Academy Shoreditch Park based on the number of pupils in its secondary year groups who are eligible for deprivation, i.e. Free School Meals (FSM) or Looked After Children (LAC).
- For 2024-25, the per pupil allocation is £1,050 with a total of 471 pupils eligible (54.6% of the school roll), bringing the total allocation to £494,550.
- For 2023-24 the per pupil allocation was £1,050 with a total of 403 pupils eligible (51.3% of the school roll), bringing the total allocation to £423,764.
- The 2022-23 per pupil allocation was £1,005 with a total of 412 pupils eligible (58.3% of roll), bringing the total Pupil Premium allocation to £414,549.
- For 2021-22, the allocation was £967 per pupil with a total of 384 pupils eligible (54.7% of roll) with a total allocation of £371,432.
Main barriers to academic achievement faced by disadvantaged students
The following are the potential barriers preventing the narrowing of the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged pupils.
Social Segregation
The academy is situated in the Hoxton ward of Hackney which on average measures of deprivation is in the top 5% of most deprived areas in England. It is characterised by high levels of crime, acts of violence or anti-social behaviour and high numbers of lone-parent families compared to national averages.
Attendance
Statistically, it has been proven that there is a clear link between poor attendance at school and lower academic achievement. Disadvantaged pupils are closely monitored through the pastoral team, who provide support to parents in tackling issues affecting their child’s attendance or punctuality.
Parental Engagement
Increasing the range of opportunities for parental involvement in the education of their children often has a positive impact on achievement. Where this is lacking, attainment levels often drop.
Effective Feedback to Parents
Feedback needs to be constructively delivered in order to have a positive impact on achievement. Tangible advice to parents, directly linked to learning outcomes, is most effective in boosting student engagement and therefore achievement.
Teaching Quality
The maximisation of the impact of teaching is essential to ensuring that students are able to achieve at their highest potential. Training interventions for teachers are essential to ensure effective teaching is consistently available to pupils.
Use of Pupil Premium in addressing the barriers (rationale of spend)
The Pupil Premium Grant is utilised through a variety of targeted interventions which aim to improve the learning experiences of disadvantaged pupils.
- Free breakfast is offered to all students every morning if they come into school at 7.45am.
- Maths and English intervention programmes are designed to ensure that pupils making less than expected progress are able to access support from teaching assistants or specialist staff in improving their attainment levels. The support is consistently refined and revised to ensure that there is a growing understanding of pupils’ needs in making sustained progress.
- The reading intervention programme is a learning tool targeted at pupils with lower than expected levels of literacy. Students receive personalised learning through fun and engaging on-line activities aimed at developing verbal, reading, spelling and writing skills.
- Additional Studies provision is the offer of extra-curricular activities one day per week during which students participate in a wide range of enrichment classes after school. In addition to this, competitive sport and music clubs are run all year round.
- The Behaviour Mentor intervention programme aims to raise pupils’ self-esteem and develop positive social interaction skills that may otherwise be lacking. The programme allows mentors to work closely with Subject Leaders, class teachers and Looked After Children teams to ensure the requisite skills for learning and building positive relationships with peers are developed.
- Engagement programmes are designed to empower students and parents to play a much more active role within the school community. Some of the programmes include Pastoral and Parent Days, during which pupils and parents discuss with teachers the performance and attainment levels and agree improvement strategies towards achieving set learning targets as well as external mentoring programmes.
- The Education Welfare Programme provides required support ensuring our students record excellent school attendance and are able to make sustainable progress in learning.
- Subsidised Music Tuition is available on a wide range of instruments. These take place in groups or individually and the tuition cost is subsidised to encourage more pupils to participate. Additional sponsorship is available for talented pupils to participate in larger music achievement schemes.
- A hardship fund supports students and parents in extreme need with the purchasing of certain items of uniform and equipment. For more information please email enquiries@shoreditch.cola.org.uk.
Interventions on offer at Key Stage Four
- The Saturday School Intervention Programme offers academic enrichment and revision support to lower attaining pupils.
- Half Term and Easter revision courses are specifically targeted at pupils who are at risk of underachieving in their exams. They will offer coaching in subject areas and topics where pupils are experiencing difficulties.
- Daily Directed Intervention Time after school is provided for students of a range of abilities who are underachieving in specific subjects.
- The Breakfast and Drop Down Revision programmes are targeted at lower achieving students who would benefit from revising alone or in groups. The free healthy breakfast helps them to be in the right frame of mind for study.
- Subsidised field trips abroad exist in recognition of and response to the increasing number of parents that can no longer afford to pay for school field trips. The academy offers support in order to ensure that talent is not wasted by pupils missing out on education opportunities that can be life-transforming.
The impact of the Pupil Premium Grant
City of London Academy Shoreditch Park is committed to ensuring that every child makes outstanding progress and fulfils their potential.
In Summer 2023 we were 12th in the country for schools with a similar level of deprivation, and had the highest results in the whole of the City of London Academies Trust.
The progress 8 score was above the national average for Pupil Premium Students.
In Summer 2024 we achieved a progress 8 score of +0.66, putting us in the top 11% of schools in the country.
Attainment 8 for PP students was 5. Progress 8 was 0.33 and this is compared to 0.16, the national progress 8 score for non pupil premium students.
95% of students passed their GCSE English, and 89% passed GCSE Maths.