The Pupil Premium

The pupil premium is extra government funding given to state-funded schools in England to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged pupils and close the achievement gap between them and their peers.

The pupil premium is designed to address inequality by giving every school and teacher the resources they need to help their most disadvantaged pupils, allowing them the freedom to respond appropriately to individual circumstances.

The current funding for primary aged pupils is £1,550 per year.

The funding is not a personal budget for individual children. Instead, schools use it strategically for whole-school or targeted approaches. Guidance from the Department for Education and the Education Endowment Foundation recommends focusing spending on a three-tiered approach:

• High-quality teaching: Staff professional development, recruitment, and retention.
• Targeted academic support: Small-group or one-to-one tuition.
• Wider non-academic barriers: Support for attendance, behaviour, and social and emotional well-being. 

School accountability for the Pupil Premium

The pupil premium is paid to schools as they are best placed to assess what additional provision their pupils need.

Ofsted inspections report on how schools’ use of the funding affects the attainment of their disadvantaged pupils.

The DfE also hold schools to account through performance tables, which include data on:

• the attainment of the pupils who attract the funding
• the progress made by these pupils
• the gap in attainment between disadvantaged pupils and their peers

Schools maintained by the local authority must publish their strategy for using the pupil premium on their website.