If your child is eligible for free school meals, the school will get extra funding for your child’s education when you apply – £985 per child in secondary school.
This funding is called Pupil Premium. The pupil premium is an additional sum to help provide specific support to raise attainment and address the wider needs of vulnerable children. It is not a personal budget for each child but a collective budget that is managed the school – the amount the school receives is based on the number of eligible pupils recorded in the school’s January census.
The money can be used by the school to help with the cost of school trips, extra teaching staff and activities.
Your child could be eligible for free school meals if you or your partner receive a qualifying benefit.
If you or your partner receive any of the following benefits you can apply for free school meals.
Once eligible, existing children who no longer meet the eligibility criteria at that point will continue to receive free school meals until the end of their current phase of education, i.e. primary or secondary.
For example: If your child is in year 8 in 2022, they will receive free school meals until they finish secondary school even if your income is more than £7,500 per year
If you’re a foster parent, you cannot apply for free school meals as you already receive funding.
If you already receive free school meals for a child and just want to add another child, contact us and we’ll be able to check if the additional child is eligible.
If you get Housing Benefit or Council Tax Support, contact us and we’ll be able to check if your child is eligible.
Apply online here and get an instant decision.
Remember, even if your child does not want to receive a free school meal or brings a packed lunch and you receive a qualifying benefit, make sure you apply so the school gets the extra funding.
‘Giving every young person the best start in life, whatever their background and wherever they come from, is a mission that unites teachers. By acknowledging the relationship between family income and educational success, the Pupil Premium cuts right to the heart of the reason most of us became educators.’
~ Sir Kevan Collins
‘The glory of God is a human fully alive!’
~ St. Irenaeus
The pupil premium is additional funding for publicly funded schools in England to raise the attainment of disadvantaged students of all abilities and to close the gaps between them and their peers.
Pupil Premium funding applies to:
Pupil Premium funding is allocated directly to schools and they can choose how this is spent to support the achievement of students who attract this funding.
Our strategy contains information about numbers of PP students at St. Cuthbert’s and funding amounts.
Evidence nationally suggests that there are a number of common barriers often experienced by our disadvantaged students. Knowing our students, assessing trends and evaluating previous strategies, the barriers we will focus on in 2022-25 are:
Our 3-year pupil premium strategy focuses on breaking through these barriers that are most prevalent for our disadvantaged students at St Cuthbert’s. We have set our sites on closing the attainment gap between our PP and Non-PP students over the next 3 years. In order to do this, we plan to use a variety of methods and micro-strategies based on evidence from:
Ultimately, we strive to provide all of our disadvantaged students with the high-quality teaching and opportunities they require to achieve in line with all other students.
Every member of staff in our school community has a part to play in narrowing the attainment gap between our disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students.
The EEF suggests a 3-tiered approach to spending (see link above). All staff have roles that fit into these tiers, but here is where some key members of staff fit into the tiers in our strategy:
There is a key on page 1 of our strategy to help you to access it more clearly.
If you have any questions about our Pupil Premium Strategy, or would like to discuss it in more detail, please don’t hesitate to contact school.
