Pupil and Sports Premium

Pupil Premium

You may be aware that the government introduced ‘The Pupil Premium Grant’ in April 2011 and schools are allocated additional funding into their school budget.

The premium provides funding specifically for children from lower income families or service families who have registered. The purpose of the grant into schools is to raise achievement and improve outcomes for these children. Now that all children in EYFS/KS1 are entitled to free school meals, it is important that families register for pupil premium funding as schools are not automatically informed of entitlement.

We will be able to use the grant in a number of ways, whilst ensuring it is carefully targeted for those eligible children in order to help them achieve their potential both academically and socially. The main ways in which the money can be spent are:

To fund or part-fund the provision of Teaching Assistant support for individuals, small groups and classes to help children to achieve their academic potential.
To fund the provision of specific resources to support and improve achievement.
To fund the provision of Teaching Assistant support for non-academic interventions to help increase self-esteem, develop social skills, improve relationships, confidence etc.
To subsidise school uniform, music lessons, extra-curricular activities, trips, visitors and performers to school.

The Department of Education website is a good source of additional information:

Department of Education

Pupil Premium at Merrydale Junior School

At Merrydale Junior School, we ensure that teaching and learning opportunities meet the needs of all pupils. Appropriate provision is made for pupils that belong to vulnerable groups, this includes ensuring that the needs of socially disadvantaged pupils are adequately assessed and addressed. Pupil Premium funding will be allocated following a needs analysis which will identify priority classes, groups or individuals. This will be through whole school monitoring of data, assessments and discussions with the class teacher.

Financial Year 2019-20

In the 2019 – 2020 financial year, schools will receive the following funding for each child registered as eligible for free school meals at any point in the last 6 years:

1,320 for pupils in EYFS to Year 6

Schools will also receive £2,300 for each pupil who has left local-authority care because of 1 of the following:

An adoption order
A special guardianship order
A child arrangements order
A residence order

If a pupil has been registered as eligible for free school meals and has also left local-authority care for any of the reasons above, they will attract the £2, 300 rate. Children who have been in local-authority care for 1 day or more also attract £2, 300 of pupil premium funding. Funding for these pupils doesn’t go to their school; it goes to the virtual school head (VSH) in the local authority that looks after the child. VSHs are responsible for managing pupil premium funding for looked-after children.

Who is Eligible for Free School Meals?

Income support
Income-based jobseeker’s allowance
Income-related employment and support allowance
National asylum seeker support
Child tax credit (provided you’re not also entitled to working tax credit and have an annual gross income of no more than £16,190)
The guaranteed element of state pension credit
Working tax credit run-on – paid for four weeks after you stop qualifying for working tax credit
Universal credit with annual net earned income of less than £7,400

Further Information

For a detailed breakdown of how this money has been allocated, please take a look at the button below:

Pupil Premium Action Plans

PE & Sport Funding 2023-24

At Merrydale Junior School, we recognise that P.E plays an important role in a child’s education and overall health and well-being. We believe that a broad and stimulating P.E. curriculum and extra-curricular opportunities are vital to allow the development of our children’s skills and physical fitness as well as important values such as self-confidence, determination, respect and fair play.

Our P.E. and Sport Premium funding enables us to continue and extend our provision through employing a specialist P.E. teacher to provide varied and high quality P.E. sessions for our pupils whilst simultaneously providing staff development in the teaching of P.E. In addition to employing our own P.E specialist, the funds are being used to develop after school activities to provide access to a variety of sports opportunities and enabling the school to participate in competitive sports competitions.

What Is The Sports Premium?

The government is providing £150 million per annum to improve the provision of P.E and sport in primary schools. This funding is ring-fenced and therefore can only be spent on the provision of PE and sport in schools. Schools must spend the additional funding on improving their provision of PE and sport, but have the freedom to choose how they do this. Below is an overview of how we have decided to use this funding for the academic years 2014 onwards.

PE and Sports Funding

2014-15	£9,437
2015-16	£9,633
2016-17	£9,633
2017-18	£19,670
2018-19	£19,670
2019-20	£19,630
2020-21	£19,677
2021-22	£19,677
2022-23	£19,677
2023-24	£19,677

How is the funding used at Merrydale

We appointed a full time PE specialist at the beginning of the 2014-15 school year who continues to:

Deliver high quality PE lessons throughout the day alongside teachers.
Provides a range of lunch and after school activities, including intra-sport competition.
Organises school teams to participate in local sport competitions.

Our commitment to provide and improve the P.E and Sport provision at Merrydale has been rewarded with us achieving the GOLD MARK through the School Games application for 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 academic years.

How are we enhancing the use of the Sports Premium?

We have been affiliated to the Leicester City Primary School Football league since the 2014-15 academic year which allows our boys’ and girls’ to compete against other schools throughout the year. Regular updates can be found through our Merrydale Sport twitter page.

At Merrydale we are part of an important network that allows us to access CPD, resources, sports events and leadership courses to develop the impact of our sports premium. We are affiliated to the Leicester City School Sport and Physical Activity Network (SSPAN) whose aim is to ensure all young people in Leicester City have the opportunity to enjoy P.E, Sport and Physical Activity. Through the Sport Premium funding we have purchased a package to ensure our children have the access to the many opportunities the SSPAN provides throughout the year. The tables below give a full breakdown of the sports events and participation figures for the 2018-19 school year.

Sport Competitions & Participation Figures