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At The Matthew Arnold School we are committed to supporting our students so that they achieve their full potential in all areas of school life and believe that academic progress should not be impacted by personal circumstances or vulnerabilities.
| Mr Watts - Pupil Premium Lead |
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| Email Mr Watts |
Research shows that young people who have a background with less wealth tend to make less progress in school compared to young people who are from backgrounds with more financial support. The government allocates Pupil Premium funding to schools to break this cycle of underachievement for these young people, who are referred to as disadvantaged learners.
Students who have been in receipt of Free School Meals at any stage in the last six years, have been adopted from care or who are currently looked after under the auspices of the local authority qualify as disadvantaged learners.
Schools also receive additional funding to support the children whose parents/carers are in the armed forces. Schools are free to spend the Pupil Premium (PP) as they see fit. However, schools are to be held accountable for how the PP has been used.
Improving Performance Strategies
Our strategies for improving the performance of disadvantaged students are based on research by The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) which identified that schools making the biggest difference were guided by these seven principles for success:
- Whole-school ethos of attainment for all
- Addressing behaviour and attendance
- High quality teaching for all
- Meeting individual learning needs
- Deploying staff effectively
- Data-driven and responding to evidence
- Clear, responsive leadership.
At The Matthew Arnold School we believe that we embody these building blocks every day in our support for our disadvantaged learners. We recognise that this is not a process that ever stops and are committed to continuing this work so that every student can achieve their full potential. We prioritise high quality teaching across the whole school. We recognise that sometimes students will need additional support to achieve their potential; we use the Pupil Premium funding to support whole-school initiatives as well as intervention programmes, specifically targeted at individual disadvantaged learners.
