Pupil Premium
The pupil premium grant is a sum of money given to schools each year by the Government to improve the attainment of disadvantaged children. This is based on research showing that children from low income families perform less well at school than their peers. The grant is used to reduce the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers and increase their chances of employability in the future. Often, children who are entitled to pupil premium face challenges such as poor language and communication skills, lack of confidence and issues with attendance and punctuality. The pupil premium is intended to directly benefit the children who are eligible, helping to narrow the gap between them and their classmates.
Eligibility:
From September 2026, there will be two types of eligibility:
Targeted free school meals
- Children in households receiving Universal Credit with earnings of £7,400 a year or less.
- Children from households in receipt of Universal Credit with annual household earnings of £7,400 or less.
- Households qualifying for free meals because they are in receipt of support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999.
- Households in receipt of Income-related Employment and Support Allowance or the guarantee element of Pension Credit or families with no recourse to public funds (NRPF).
Expanded free school meals.
- Children in households receiving Universal Credit with earnings above £7,400 a year.
Apply for free school meals here
Schools can choose how to spend their pupil premium money, within the requirements of the conditions of grant, as they are best placed to identify what would be of most benefit to the children who are eligible. Pupil premium is not a personal budget for individual pupils and schools are not required to spend all of the allocated grant on eligible pupils. Often, all of the children in a class will reap some benefit from how the school spends its pupil premium: for example, if the money is used to fund an additional teaching assistant who works across the whole class, rather than providing one-to-one support. But research shows that the fund does help to narrow gaps between disadvantaged children and their peers, particularly in English and maths.
In addition, pupils who have qualified for free school meals on the above grounds in the past, but are no longer eligible, continue to receive pupil premium for the next six years.
Schools are responsible for recording the children who are eligible for pupil premium in their annual school census - you don't have to do anything yourself, other than making sure you return any paperwork that relates to the benefits you receive or your child's entitlement to free school meals.
These documents outline how the funding is used to support children at Warfield.
