Pupil Premium
Purpose
The pupil premium grant is funding to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged pupils in state-funded schools in England.
The grant also provides support for children and young people with parents in the regular armed forces, referred to as service pupil premium (SPP). This has been combined into pupil premium payments to make it easier for schools to manage their spending. Pupils that the SPP intends to support are not necessarily from financially disadvantaged backgrounds.
The grant supports all schools to use the wealth of evidence of ‘what works’, evaluated by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), to use this funding effectively.
Funding criteria
Pupil premium funding is allocated to eligible schools based on the number of:
- pupils who are recorded as eligible for free school meals, or have been recorded as eligible in the past 6 years (referred to as Ever 6 FSM)
- children previously looked after by a local authority or other state care, including children adopted from state care or equivalent from outside England and Wales
Pupil premium is not a personal budget for individual pupils, and schools do not have to spend pupil premium so that it solely benefits pupils who meet the funding criteria. It can be used:
- to support other pupils with identified needs, such as those who have or have had a social worker, or who act as a carer
- for whole class interventions which will also benefit non-disadvantaged pupils
Pupil premium funding is allocated to local authorities based on the number of:
- looked-after children, supported by the local authority
- pupils who meet any of the eligibility criteria and who attend an independent setting, where the local authority pays full tuition fees
For pupils who are looked-after children, funding should be managed by the local authority’s virtual school head (VSH) in consultation with the child’s school.
Details of the funding criteria for SPP is outlined in the Service pupil premium section.
Funding rates for the 2024 to 2025 financial year
This table shows how the pupil premium grant is allocated to schools and local authorities in the 2024 to 2025 financial year, based on per pupil rates.
| Funding criteria | Amount of funding for each primary-aged pupil per year | Amount of funding for each secondary-aged pupil per year | Funding is paid to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pupils who are eligible for free school meals, or have been eligible in the past 6 years | £ 1,480 | £ 1,050 | School |
| Pupils previously looked after by a local authority or other state care | £ 2,570 | £ 2,570 | School |
| Children who are looked after by the local authority | £ 2,570 | £ 2,570 | Local authority |
Pupil premium allocations and conditions of grant for the 2024 to 2025 financial year has more information including:
- allocations for each school and the totals at national, local authority and parliamentary constituency level
- how pupil premium funding must be spent
- how allocations are calculated
The PP grant per pupil rates for financial year 2025 to 2026 are set out below.
Pupils who are recorded as LAC/PLAC and FSM Ever 6 will attract the LAC/PLAC per pupil amount only. Eligible service children will attract the SPP rate in addition to any other pupil premium grant eligibility rate.
| Disadvantaged pupils | per pupil rate |
|---|---|
| Pupils in year groups reception to year 6 recorded as FSM Ever 6 | £1,515 |
| Pupils in years 7 to 11 recorded as FSM Ever 6 | £1,075 |
| Looked-after children (LAC) | £2,630 |
| Previously looked-after children (PLAC) | £2,630 |
| Service children | per pupil rate |
|---|---|
| Eligible service children in year groups reception to year 11 | £350 |
Where national curriculum year groups do not apply to a pupil, the pupil will attract pupil premium grant if aged 4 to 15 as recorded in the October 2024 school census for mainstream and special schools, and in the January 2025 school census for PRUs and AP academies. These pupils will attract the same amount of funding as if they were in the year-group that corresponds to their age.
Pupil premium allocations and conditions of grant for the 2025 to 2026 financial year has more information including:
- allocations for each school and the totals at national, local authority and parliamentary constituency level
- how pupil premium funding must be spent
- how allocations are calculated
Please find linked below a document detailing how Great Bentley Primary School has prioritised its spending for the current academic year and impact in the previous academic year.
Pupil Premium Strategy Statement 2024-25