Pupil Premium 2016/17

Nelmes Pre-School is committed to equality of opportunity for all pupils, regardless of socio-economic background. We will strive to help all pupils reach their full potential and the Pupil Premium grant helps us to do this by awarding the Pre-School additional funding which can be used in a variety of ways, as decided upon by the school leadership. The Pupil Premium is additional funding given to schools so that they can support their disadvantaged pupils and close the attainment gap between them and their peers.

Purpose

The Government believes that the Pupil Premium, which is additional to school funding, is the best way to address the current underlying inequalities between children eligible for free school meals (FSM) and their peers by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the pupils who need it most.

The Pupil Premium was introduced to Pre-Schools, for children aged 3-4 years, in April 2015, and is allocated to schools to work with pupils who have been registered for free school meals at any point in the last six years. Schools also receive funding for children who have been looked after continuously for more than six months, and children of service personnel.

Funding

In April 2015, £50 million nationally was allocated to Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) for 3-4 year olds. This means we will be able to use an extra £300 per year for our children who are eligible. Looked after children, adopted children, special guardianship children, children subject to a child arrangement order and those children in families where the joint income is below £16,190 per year will be able to claim the EYPP including those families in receipt of:

· Income Support

· Income-based Jobseekers Allowance

· Income-related Employment and Support Allowance

· Support from NASS (National Asylum Support Service) under Part 6 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999

· The Guarantee Element of State Pension Credit

· Child Tax Credit (with no Working Tax Credit) with an annual income of no more than £16,190

In most cases the Pupil Premium will be paid direct to the Pre-School and is available for every pupil who fits the criteria above. The Pre-School will decide how to use the funding, as they are best placed to assess what additional provision their pupils need.

For pupils from low-income families in non-mainstream settings the local authority decides how to allocate the Pupil Premium. The authority must consult non-mainstream settings about how the Premium for these pupils should be used.

Accountability

The Government believes that Pre-School Manager’s and leaders should decide how to use the Pupil Premium. However, we will be held accountable for the decisions we make through:

· the performance tables which show the performance of disadvantaged pupils compared with their peers

· the new Ofsted inspection framework, under which inspectors focus on the attainment of pupil groups, in particular those who attract the Pupil Premium

As an Early Years setting we have the freedom to choose how we spend the money to best support disadvantaged children in our care. Our pre-school will use the additional funding in the following ways:

Select relevant services from the ‘Early Years charged offer to private and voluntary (PV) early year’s providers’ available from Havering Early Years.

1. Continue our commitment to furthering our knowledge within our Continuing Professional Development by attending relevant training.

2. Creating ‘Home/Setting’ lending bags and boxes.

3. Buy in any specialist services to support families and children (this includes the cost of staffing such events), such as, healthy cooking, parenting classes and information awareness sessions.

4. Providing additional staff to allow us to provide more acceptable child : adult ratios.

5. Purchasing additional resources.