Our intention is that all pupils, irrespective of their background or the challenges they face, make good progress and achieve high attainment across all subject areas. The focus of our pupil premium strategy is to support disadvantaged pupils to achieve that goal, drive attainment, improve attendance and support behaviour for learning. 

At Key Stage 3 we have a specific focus on literacy and are increasing the use of the Accelerated Reader programme, Bedrock, ‘The Day’ and the tutor reading programme to enrich students’ vocabulary, comprehension and reading ages. We are also piloting a small group Intervention project which utilises the Rapid Plus package which promotes small group discussion around reading skills. This is being led by our Literacy Coordinator. 

All staff are able to bid for PP funding in order to support individuals or groups of Disadvantaged Pupils with specific needs. 

Our prime focus for all disadvantaged Pupils follows the current research evidence that ‘quality first teaching’ is the most effective strategy we can employ.This is proven to have the greatest impact on closing the disadvantage attainment gap and at the same time will benefit the non-disadvantaged pupils in our school. Our current drive on embedding ‘Metacognition’ into the classroom and developing peer mentors continues with our focus from recent years by developing the most effective strategies identified in the Education Endowment Toolkit (strategies found by research-led evidence to be most effective in improving the progress of Disadvantaged Students) – metacognition, feedback and peer mentoring. Whole school core CPD, which utilises the EFA’s ‘Embedding Formative Assessment’, focuses staff on providing the best planning, the best delivery and the best feedback for DP students. 

In addition we will embed systemic change which is planned into the way our school is run to address the needs of Disadvantaged Pupils, for example, through timetabled transition sessions for Year 7 students and mixed ability teaching in English as well as the continuation of the ‘Learn to Learn’ lessons for Year 7 as part of the Personal Development offer.

Our approach will be responsive to common challenges and individual needs, rooted in robust diagnostic assessment. The approaches we have adopted complement each other to help pupils make good progress. 

To ensure they are effective we will: 

• ensure disadvantaged pupils are challenged in the work that they’re set through the use of adaptive teaching strategies (this will be be quality assured by leaders across the school) 
• act early to intervene at the point need is identified 
• adopt a whole school approach in which school culture requires all staff take responsibility for disadvantaged pupils’ outcomes and raise expectations of what they can achieve (This will be through our Priority DP mentoring and ‘Known and Loved’)
• track the progress that all children are making to ensure good progress is being made and strategies being used are effective (Progress Leaders will have a fixed item agenda during line management meetings in order to ensure this)
• ensure that all children have access to enrichment experiences such as visits, sporting experiences and enrichment opportunities 
• Tutors will monitor attendance and support parents to ensure their child attends school so that there is a reduced gap between the attendance of disadvantaged children and others
• Participate in the WSCC ‘Everyone Achieves’ project which aims to create a collaborative culture of sharing best practice throughout similar schools in the locality. 
• Develop and sustain the alternative provision offer in order to ensure the curriculum can be accessed by all students