Using pupil premium: guidance for school leaders
How school leaders can use their pupil premium funding effectively, complete their strategy statement and information about pupil premium payments.
Applies to England
Overview
This is advice for school leaders and anyone else involved in managing the use of pupil premium (and recovery premium in the 2021 to 2022 academic year) in schools.
It may also be useful for governing boards, parents and local authorities who want to know how schools can use their pupil premium effectively and the reporting requirements.
There’s separate guidance which gives a brief overview of the pupil premium.
Pupil premium in the 2021 to 2022 academic year
As in previous years, continue to use the pupil premium to improve the attainment of your disadvantaged pupils. The disproportionately high impact of COVID-19 on the education of disadvantaged pupils makes this more important than ever.
For 2021 to 2022, you are required to:
- use your recovery premium alongside your pupil premium funding and report on your use of them as a single sum in your strategy statement
- use our template to publish your strategy statement – see condition 8 of the conditions of grant
- publish your strategy statement by 31 December 2021 – this enables you to take the needs of your new intake into account
- demonstrate how your spending decisions are informed by a range of evidence – see condition 7 of the conditions of grant
Developing and delivering an effective strategy
1. Identify the specific challenges faced by your disadvantaged and vulnerable pupils
Diagnostic assessment is crucial for understanding the specific elements of education that pupils are finding challenging, rather than performance in whole subjects. For example, a focus on the specific vocabulary required in different subject areas.
See the Education Endowment Fund’s (EEF) diagnostic assessment resource for further information.
You should also develop an understanding of any non-academic challenges that pupils are facing that are negatively affecting their education and impact their access to teaching, for example:
- attendance and levels of persistent absence
- behaviour incidences and exclusions data
- wellbeing, mental health and safeguarding concerns
- access to technology and educational materials
- high mobility
When identifying challenges, you should draw on a range of data sources including discussions with teachers and support staff and engagement with pupils and families.
2. Create a strategy plan to address the key challenges
Consider taking a longer-term approach to your use of pupil premium funding. 3-year plans are recommended.
Your plan should focus on the controllable challenges that are having the most significant adverse impact on your disadvantaged pupils.
Use a balanced structure to help map out your approach. The EEF’s Pupil Premium Guide recommends that you adopt a tiered model which focuses on:
- high-quality teaching
- targeted academic support
- wider strategies
Ensure that you consult school leaders and other relevant staff members, for example, the designated safeguarding lead, the designated teacher, and the special educational needs coordinator (SENCo). You should also consult relevant external partners, such as the Virtual School Head.
3. Use evidence to assess the merit of any activity that you consider implementing
You should:
- consult a wide range of independent, high-quality reviews of evidence, such as the evidence summaries published by EEF
- assess whether the evidence is based on a context relevant to your school
- consider how to be an effective consumer and challenge evidence claims made by external providers
Evidence of the impact of activity can help you to set the outcomes that you want to achieve by the end of your plan.
4. Implement your plan
You should consider:
- how to integrate the activity with the curriculum
- what changes will be needed to existing ways of working
- which pupils will get what activity, when and in what group size
- how to ensure all staff promote the principles and ethos of your strategy, such as high aspiration
- professional development requirements, taking the standard for professional development into account
- requirements of external providers if you are using them
- what data and resources will be required to monitor the impact of each activity
See EEF’s Putting Evidence to Work – A School’s Guide to Implementation for further information.
5. Evaluate your strategy
When evaluating impact, you should:
- measure success based on outcomes for disadvantaged and vulnerable pupils
- implement a robust and transparent evaluation framework and report outcomes against this
- ensure evaluation is an ongoing process – strategies that have been effective in one year may not continue to be effective
When evaluating impact, you should not:
- use data that does not focus on pupil outcomes
- base evaluation on the reactions of those delivering the activity
- use vague intended outcomes from the start, making an accurate assessment of improvements more difficult
6. Sustain your strategy
The outcomes of your evaluation will inform your decision whether to sustain or stop each activity.
Where a strategy is successful, it is particularly important to continue monitoring implementation. Enthusiasm for approaches may reduce in subsequent years and additional professional development and resources are likely to be required for new and existing staff to maintain successful outcomes.
Request a review
You can request a pupil premium review to help you identify more effective ways to use your pupil premium.
Pooling pupil premium in academy trusts
Academy trusts may wish to pool resources and set a strategy for use of pupil premium and recovery premium funding across multiple academies. Trusts must ensure that any such strategy is flexible enough to accommodate the specific needs of each school’s disadvantaged pupil cohort.
Each school must publish or update a strategy statement by 31 December every year.
3-year strategy
Taking a longer-term approach by planning your use of pupil premium over multiple years (3 years is recommended) can make it easier to plan your spending, recruitment, teaching practice and staff development.
If you use a multi-year approach, you must review your strategy and publish an updated strategy statement every academic year before 31 December.
Non-eligible pupils
You do not have to spend your pupil premium so it solely benefits eligible pupils. You can use it to support other pupils with identified needs. For example, you might decide to spend it on pupils who do not get free school meals but:
- have or have had a social worker
- act as a carer
Evidence from across the English school system shows that using your pupil premium funding to improve teaching quality is the most effective way to improve outcomes for disadvantaged pupils. By doing so, you will inevitably benefit non-eligible pupils as well.
Academically able pupils
Pupil premium funding is not allocated based on academic ability. Your pupil premium allocation will be based on all of the eligible pupils in your school.
Evidence shows that academically able pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds are most at risk of under-performing. These pupils should receive just as much focus in your use of pupil premium as less academically able pupils.
Pupil premium plus
Pupil premium plus is funding to help improve the attainment of looked-after children and previously looked-after children. As with pupil premium, it is not a personal budget for individual children.
Children who are looked after by the local authority
For looked-after children, pupil premium plus is managed by each local authority’s Virtual School Head for the purpose of supporting their educational attainment.
Your designated teacher should work with Virtual School Heads to ensure that pupil premium plus for looked after children in your school is used to meet the needs identified in their personal education plans.
Local authorities are expected to release these payments as soon as possible to schools, but they may choose to retain a portion of it to fund activities that will benefit a group, or all, of the authority’s looked-after children.
Pupils who were previously looked after by the local authority
Pupil premium plus for previously looked-after children is managed by the child’s school, alongside their pupil premium funding. The designated teacher has a key role in ensuring the specific needs of previously looked-after children are reflected in how the school uses its funding to support these children.
Your designated teacher should:
- ensure adoptive parents and guardians are aware that they can declare their child eligible for pupil premium plus and work with them in deciding how the funding should be used
- consult the Virtual School Head on how to use the funding effectively, where appropriate
- be the main contact for queries about the use of pupil premium plus
Service pupil premium
Service pupil premium is additional funding for schools, but it is not based on disadvantage. It has been combined into pupil premium payments to make it easier for you to manage your spending.
The funding is for pastoral support for eligible pupils.
The strategy statement template includes an optional section to report on how you are using the service pupil premium and its impact on eligible pupils.
There’s separate guidance published by the Ministry of Defence on the service pupil premium.
Strategy statements
Local authority-maintained schools and most academies (check your funding agreement) must produce and publish a strategy statement every year.
You have until 31 December to publish your statement each year. This will enable you to take the needs of your new intake into account.
Purpose of the strategy statement
The strategy statement is for you to explain how your pupil premium funding is being spent and the outcomes that are being achieved. It’s important that parents and governors can understand how you’re using the pupil premium and you should write it with these groups in mind.
Ofsted inspectors will only use your statement to help them prepare for their visit.
It is:
- not part of your management accounting obligations
- not intended to monitor within-class or within-school attainment gaps
- not used by DfE to allocate future funding
Reporting on wider strategy outcomes
It can be challenging to evaluate the impact of any activity that is not directly linked to academic outcomes, for example, activity supporting social and emotional wellbeing. You should still write about this in your online statement and refer to any evidence that shows you’re making progress.
Instructions
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Read this guidance, the relevant example statement and the EEF pupil premium guide, before you produce your strategy statement.
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Complete the DfE template, save the document (for example as a PDF file) and publish it on your school’s website.
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Ensure you review and update your strategy statement before 31 December each academic year even if you are using a multi-year strategy.
Strategy statement templates
From the 2021 to 2022 academic year, you must use the template provided to publish your statement – this is a condition of your funding.
If you have already adopted a multi-year strategy that will continue this academic year, you do not need to develop a new strategy, but must use the new template to outline your existing strategy by 31 December.
Pupil premium statement template (MS Word Document, 30.5KB)
Pupil premium statement example (primary) (MS Word Document, 70.9KB)
Pupil premium statement example (secondary) (MS Word Document, 63.6KB)
Pupil premium statement example (special) (MS Word Document, 55.4KB)
Format of the blank template
The template is designed to ensure your statement meets the requirements of the conditions of grant. You may also find it a helpful tool for developing your pupil premium strategy, in conjunction with the guidance on developing and delivering an effective strategy and the EEF pupil premium guide.
Part A is for you to explain your strategy for using pupil premium (and recovery premium for 2021 to 2022) to improve outcomes for disadvantaged pupils.
Part B is for you to explain what the outcomes of your pupil premium spending were for disadvantaged pupils in the previous academic year.
There is an optional further information section to provide any additional information you wish to publish.
Performance measures related to coronavirus (COVID-19)
The template for the 2021 to 2022 academic year does not include a requirement to enter information relating to performance measures given the impact of COVID-19 on their production and publication.
In future academic years, the template will incorporate requirements relating to performance measurement data.
School allocations
Pupil premium is paid quarterly on a financial year basis. The first instalment is paid in late June for maintained schools and early July for academies.
Your school’s allocation will be published in March, helping you to plan ahead.
The full payment schedule is published in the conditions of grant. You can also view the pupil premium funding allocations that have been given to each school and at national, local authority and parliamentary constituency level.
‘Key to success’ data download
If you need to check which pupils your school’s allocation is based on you can consult key to success from April each year.
Key to success cannot be used for planning or delivering the pupil premium strategy as it is a retrospective list of eligible pupils based on the October census. For pupils in alternative provision settings, we use the January census.
Eligibility and funding rates
School allocations are calculated based on the number of pupils who attend the school who are eligible for pupil premium funding.
The eligibility criteria and per pupil rates are published in the conditions of grant. There are separate conditions of grant for:
- local authorities (relating to pupil premium for state-funded schools)
- academies and free schools
Pupils who move schools
As pupil premium is not an entitlement for individual pupils, you do not get an adjustment if a pupil leaves your school or joins another school.
The only exception is for permanently excluded pupils.
Excluded pupils
We’ll reduce pupil premium payments by the value of one pupil, pro-rated to the point in the financial year when the pupil left, for sending schools.
We’ll credit receiving schools by the value of one pupil, pro-rated to the point in the financial year when the pupil left the sending school.
Alternative provision schools
Alternative provision (AP) settings, with eligible pupils recorded in the census, will receive the pupil premium like all other state-funded schools.
You can include a pro-rata pupil premium sum in the cost of a place for pupils placed in AP settings:
- on a part-time basis
- who joined after the census
We’ll provide funding to local authorities for eligible pupils who are educated in independent special schools based on the number of such pupils in their area.
Errors in payments
Contact DfE if you’ve mistakenly recorded a pupil as eligible for the pupil premium.
We can change the national pupil database for you to correct individual pupil errors but we cannot amend your census return.
Allocation changes from the 2021 to 2022 financial year
Mainstream and special schools
Funding will be based on October 2020 census data instead of using the January census as was the case in previous years.
Alternative provision, pupil referral units and hospital schools
There will be no change to the allocations process.
About the census change
This change brings pupil premium allocations in line with how the rest of the core schools’ budget is calculated.
The change also provides earlier clarity for schools on their allocations. In this transitional year, pupil premium allocations have been confirmed within the usual timeline in June 2021. From 2022, the annual pupil premium allocations for mainstream and special schools will be published in March.
There’s further information in the conditions of grant where you’ll also find the allocations for each school and at national, local authority and parliamentary constituency level.
Financial impact of the pupil premium census change
Total pupil premium funding is increasing to more than £2.5 billion in the 2021 to 2022 financial year. This means:
- funding is up £60 million on the previous year
- most schools across England will see an increase in funding
- 87% of local authorities will see an increase in pupil premium funding
Pupil premium funding is in addition to the £3 billion to support education recovery. As part of this, £280 million will be allocated to schools through the recovery premium which, building on the pupil premium, will be targeted at schools most in need of supporting pupils with disadvantaged attainment. This additional support far outweighs the impact of moving the pupil premium census date from January to October.
This table shows the financial impact of moving to the October census on the annual pupil premium allocations for the 2021 to 2022 financial year. It compares the number of pupils that get the pupil premium in the 2021 to 2022 financial year with the number of pupils that would have attracted the pupil premium if the January census had been used.
| Primary pupils | Secondary pupils | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of pupils | 67,189 fewer recipients | 4,973 additional recipients | 62,216 fewer recipients |
| Financial impact | £92,445,582 less funding | £2,589,472 more funding | £89,856,109 less funding |
The overall impact is approximately £90 million. This does not mean that pupil premium funding is decreasing – total pupil premium funding is increasing compared to the previous year.
In addition to the pupil premium, pupils who are eligible for free school meals, or have been at any point in the last 6 years (“FSM6”), also attract funding through the schools national funding formula (NFF). We are also moving to use the October census, not the January census in the NFF, which in this case, means moving from the January 2020 to the October 2020 census. This will increase the amount of funding allocated through the FSM6 factor in the 2022 to 2023 financial year, as free school meals eligibility increased significantly between January and October last year.
Published 18 October 2019
Last updated 1 November 2021 + show all updates
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Added pupil premium statement examples for primary, secondary and special schools.
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We have added the template you must use to publish your statement for the 2021 to 2022 academic year. This includes a requirement to demonstrate how your spending decisions are informed by a range of evidence. We have also added new guidance on developing and delivering an effective strategy and made some changes to make the actions you need to take clearer.
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We have updated information on the templates that you must use to publish your statement for the 2021 to 2022 academic year.
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Added an updated version of ‘Allocation changes from the 2021 to 2022 financial year’ which was previously published on another webpage.
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Updated with a link to ‘Pupil premium: allocations and conditions of grant 2021 to 2022’ and added information on the requirements of schools.
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Amended the ‘pupil premium plus’ section to make the designated teacher’s actions clearer.
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Amended wording for adoptive parents to match the wording in the designated teacher statutory guidance.
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First published.
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