Pupil Premium

This page details our school’s use of pupil premium funding to help improve the attainment of our disadvantaged pupils.

It outlines our pupil premium strategy, how we intend to spend the funding in this academic year and the outcomes for disadvantaged pupils last academic year.

School overview

Details	Data
Number of pupils in school	1,024
Proportion (%) of pupil premium eligible pupils	19%
Academic year/years that our current pupil premium strategy plan covers (3-year plans are recommended – you must still publish an updated statement each academic year)	2021/22-2024/25
Date this statement was published	3^rd December 2024
Date on which it will be reviewed	November 2025
Statement authorised by	Mr James Habberley Headteacher
Pupil premium lead	Mr Alex Bedford Senior Assistant Head Teacher
Governor / Trustee lead	Mrs Anna McCormack Chair of Governors

Funding overview

Details	Amount
Pupil premium funding allocation this academic year	£ 189,330
Pupil premium (and recovery premium*) funding carried forward from previous years	N/A
Total budget for this academic year	£ 189,330

Part A: Pupil premium strategy plan

Statement of Intent

At St George, we pride ourselves on supporting the individual. Understanding our students’ needs is key to supporting them the best we can. As such, we use our academic and pastoral monitoring systems to identify groups and individuals in need and allocate our pupil premium funding accordingly to achieve their goals. Our ultimate aim is to ensure all our students are happy, independent and successful. This is summarised by our mission statement “We ASPIRE to be all that God has created us to be”.

Our intention is that all pupils, irrespective of their background or the challenges they face, make good progress and achieve high attainment across the curriculum. High-quality teaching is at the heart of our approach and has proven to have the most impact on closing the disadvantaged attainment gap. Our strategy of improving outcomes and providing more opportunities for disadvantaged pupils is integral to our whole school development plan alongside wider plans for targeted support through the national tutoring programme. To ensure they are effective, we will:

Ensure disadvantaged pupils are challenged in the work that they’re set for.
Act early to intervene at the point the need is identified.
Maintain our whole-school approach in which all staff take responsibility for disadvantaged pupils’ outcomes and raise expectations of what they can achieve.

Challenges

This details the key challenges to achievement that we have identified amongst our disadvantaged pupils.

Challenge	Details
1	Raising outcomes of disadvantaged pupils compared to other pupils in school and nationally.
2	Improving low literacy and numeracy levels that prevent students from accessing the curriculum, specifically in years 7,8 and 9.
3	Ensuring students are prepared to go on and be successful once they leave St George.
4	Improving low attendance affects students’ ability to experience high-quality teaching in lessons and benefit from the pastoral support available on site.

Intended Outcomes

This explains the outcomes we are aiming for by the end of our current strategic plan, and how we will measure whether they have been achieved.

Intended outcome	Success criteria
Reduce the in-school attainment GAP for DP compared with other pupils. Disadvantaged students make progress in line with national other or better.	By the end of our current plan in 2024/25 our basic 9-4 outcomes for disadvantaged outcomes to be above national other The in-school basics 9-4 gap <10% To achieve a positive P8 score for DP students.
Improve reading ages in order to access the more demanding 9-1 curriculum. Improve numeracy skills in order to access the maths curriculum.	Reading comprehension tests show that the GAP from reading age to actual age has been reduced. In school, tracking data shows low-ability students in maths making progress towards their end-of-year target for Maths.
Support students to go on to be successful at the next stage of their education or apprenticeship. Students access a wide variety of pastoral support focused on the individual.	Pupils staying in education or employment >95%. Students choose a variety of different colleges and courses. Student attendance is >95% following pastoral support where and when it's required.
To improve the attendance of disadvantaged pupils.	Attendance of >95%

Activity in this academic year

This details how we intend to spend our pupil premium (and recovery premium) funding this academic year to address the challenges listed above.

Teaching (for example, CPD, recruitment and retention)

Budgeted cost: £ 47,070

Activity	Evidence that supports this approach	Challenge number(s) addressed
AHT Leadership Role	Dedicated member of SLT assigned to lead and manage pupil premium strategy. It is essential that a senior member of the leadership team has responsibility for our pupil premium strategy as they have the authority, experience, time and skills to be able to ensure there is an effective plan in place to support those students.	1, 2, 3, 4
Additional set in KS4 English & Maths	Additional sets allow targeted groups to be created and support student abilities. Reduced class sizes allow for more individual support from class teachers. Additional classes also allow tiering in Maths to support individual student pathways. This approach is supported by evidence from the EEF Guide to the Pupil Premium that states that targeted support to smaller groups can make a significant difference to pupil progress.	1, 2, 3
TLR for Literacy & Numeracy co-ordinators	Literacy & Numeracy strategies are implemented across the college to support all students' progress. Evidence of the positive impact literacy and numeracy co-ordinators can have on our disadvantaged pupils is supported by the EEF Guide to the Pupil Premium With 47% of our cohort being EAL, there is a clear need to focus on ensuring our students are able to read and communicate effectively in order to access the curriculum. The evidence suggests that pupils make significant progress when they receive targeted literacy or numeracy intervention through a whole school literacy and numeracy strategy via tutor time or targeted within the curriculum. Our literacy and numeracy co-ordinators are in place to implement this.	1, 2, 3
Appointed an additional Maths & English Teacher to provide Literacy and Numeracy interventions in curriculum time.	Additional Maths & English teachers are timetabled to provide literacy and numeracy interventions in years 7&8 to key students within their curriculum time. The intention is that this will improve students' reading ages and support their confidence and progress in Maths. As above, supporting evidence for this approach comes from the EEF Guide to the Pupil Premium that states that targeted support to smaller groups can make a significant difference to pupil progress. By appointing an additional Maths and English teacher, we are able to provide additional literacy and numeracy interventions writing curriculum time to small groups of students.	1, 4

Targeted academic support (for example, tutoring, one-to-one support, structured interventions)

Budgeted cost: £ 19,470

Activity	Evidence that supports this approach	Challenge number(s) addressed
Half-term/Easter schools	Targeted intervention for students identified as behind target in their learning. Saint George realises how important it is to ensure students are supported to catch up on their learning, topics they have missed or misconceptions they have. Providing the opportunity to target support to students to address their misconceptions has proven to have a positive impact on student outcomes at Saint George. This is supported by the EEF Guide to the Pupil Premium .	1, 3
Music lessons	Supporting students to undertake a broad and balanced curriculum tailored to the individual. Evidence from the EEF suggests that participation in arts-based activities ensures students play an important part in developing the students' wider skills set and their general interests and well-being at school. It is hoped this will improve confidence and student attendance.	1, 3
Home Language Tutor	Supporting students to undertake a broad and balanced curriculum tailored to the individual. With 47% of our cohort defined as EAL, it is essential that students feel supported by their home language if they wish to take it as a GCSE but also to support students and their parents' journey to Saint George. We believe that this improves students' range of qualifications and allows them to better integrate into school, ensuring any misconceptions are addressed.	1, 3
Educational resources	Providing educational resources for students to develop their independence and support their academic achievements. By supporting students with revision guides, textbooks, laptops, this should improve students' learning. Laptops are essential for students to be able to complete homework, coursework, college applications and communicate with teachers when required to. This is supported by the EEF as an effective strategy for advantaged students.	1, 3
Educational trips	Provides enrichment opportunities to develop individual’s cultural capital and apply this to their studies where appropriate. Evidence from the EEF suggests that extracurricular activities and trips are an important part of education in its own right. These approaches increase engagement in learning, but also improve and can have a positive impact on students' wellbeing.	1, 3, 4

Wider strategies (for example, related to attendance, behaviour, wellbeing)

Budgeted cost: £ 122,790

Activity	Evidence that supports this approach	Challenge number(s) addressed
Inclusion manager	Supporting the individual needs of students to engage in the full life of the school where possible. Ensuring an Inclusion manager is in place means there is a member of staff in place to manage our inclusion centre and ensure all its students feel supported and want to attend St George. Without a manager, behaviour is affected negatively in mainstream lessons, and the student’s attendance at school drops because they don’t get the support they need.	1, 3, 4
Inclusion team	Supporting the individual needs of students to engage in the full life of the school where possible. Evidence from the EEF suggests that social and emotional skills support effective learning and are linked to positive outcomes later in life. Therefore, an inclusion team is in place to support students when required.	1, 3, 4
AP Teacher	Provides a bespoke curriculum for individual students with the aim of returning to mainstream lessons as soon as appropriate for the individual. Evidence from our own individual pathway programme has shown it has a positive impact on reducing suspension for students who were not coping with mainstream lessons and increased attendance for vulnerable pupils who were refusing to come to school.	1, 3, 4
ELSA support	Supporting the individual needs of students to engage in the full life of the school where possible. The number of students struggling with their mental health post COVID has increased significantly. Therefore, in order to cope with the demand for support, Saint George has three trained ELSA’s in place to support our students.	1, 3, 4
Careers officer	Individual careers advice and guidance to support students making informed choices about their next steps after leaving St George. Saint George must have a Careers Advisor in place. Funds are used to ensure the Careers officer is able to support our students in making future career choices but also to develop a Careers programme within the school that meets the Gatsby benchmarks. The % of students going into education, apprenticeship or employment is above national.	3, 4
Mental Health Nurse	Supporting the individual needs of students to engage in the full life of the school where possible. The number of students struggling with their mental health post COVID has increased, significantly affecting students' health, attendance and academic performance. Therefore, the EEF identifies the importance of improving and looking after students' wellbeing to support effective learning. This links to positive outcomes later in life.	3, 4
Transport	Supporting students to attend school. Every child must come to school. Saint George is not a catchment school and, therefore, it is essentially the school supports transport costs where possible so that students are able to get a school or public bus to school.	1, 4
Discretionary fund	Allocated to support individual needs as they arise. Every student has different needs, and therefore it’s important that we have a fund available to support a range of requests where they have a positive impact on the student.	3, 4

Total budgeted cost: £ 189,330

Part B: Review of the previous academic year

Outcomes for disadvantaged pupils

	Pupils eligible for PP	* National pupils not eligible for PP (2023) ** School Non-PP (2024)
Progress 8 score average 2022, 2023 & 2024	+0.04, +0.42, +0.79	+0.17 (+0.84)
Attainment 8 score average 2022, 2023 & 2024	48.4, 47.5, 55.3	50.2 (59.4)
Basics 9-4 2022, 2023 & 2024	74.5, 75, 83.3	73 (86.3)
Basics 9-5 2022, 2023 & 2024	51.0, 45.8, 66.7	52.1 (70.8)
Staying in education or employment (2020, 2021, 2022 leavers)	94%, 93%, TBC (Whole school)	National 94% Local Authority 90%
Attendance 20/21, 21/22, 22/23 & 23/24	92.5%, 89.5%, 92.2%, 92.2%	***92.6%

* figures taken from 2023 Key Stage 4 Outcomes Nova Analysis report – Provisional

** figures taken from SISRA Analytics

*** figures taken from SCC 2022/23 Full Report

The table below details the outcomes of our disadvantaged pupils for the previous three years when national data was available.

	Pupils eligible for PP	Pupils not eligible for PP (national average 2019)
Progress 8 score 2017, 2018 & 2019	+0.28, +0.67, +0.35	+0.13
Attainment 8 score 2017, 2018 & 2019	41.6, 46.9, 50.0	50.1
Basics 9-4 2017, 2018 & 2019	60.0, 68.0, 70.0	71.7
Basics 9-5 2017, 2018 & 2019	25.0, 32.0, 41.7	49.5

EBACC Entry Data: The table below shows the % of disadvantaged pupils entered for EBACC and their attainment:

Year	% of all students entered for EBACC	% DP students entered for EBACC	DP APS (Average Point Score)
2024-2025	43.6%	34.2%	TBC
2023-2024	38.3%	34.6%	4.83
2022-2023	34.3%	21.6%	4.09
2021-2022	45.9%	32.4%	4.06

Challenge number	Impact Review
1	Our disadvantaged students have significantly outperformed other national students for Progress 8, Basics at 9-4 & 9-5. The in-school GAP has also been reduced considerably for Progress 8 from 0.9 to 0.5 to now being 0.04. This is an exceptional achievement and something we now need to work hard to maintain.
2	Our literacy programme has seen an increase in the reading age in Years 7, 8 & 9. In 2022-23, disadvantaged pupils who were involved in the intervention groups made greater than expected progress in Year 7 by 4 months, in Year 8 by 10 months and in Year 9 by 3 months. In 2023-24, the intervention was disrupted by staff absence, but disadvantaged pupils who were involved in the intervention groups made greater than expected progress in Year 7 by 1 month and in Year 8 by 3 months. Our numeracy programme saw some improvement in students' performance using Freckle maths. However, the programme has now been adapted to focus on greater teacher input with fewer students.
3	Students are supported on an individual basis with personalised advice, tailored to the individual and attend a wide variety of courses at a number of different colleges. Help with attending interviews and taster days also supported students making the transition to college. This is evidenced from the initial college attendance data on Sept 24 where we have 5 students (2.5%) currently not in education or employment. This is an area we are continuing to work on.
4	The gap between national attendance and our disadvantaged students has reduced from 3% in 2021 to 0.4% in 2023 and 2024. Our target remains for all students' attendance to be above 95%.

Externally provided programmes

Please include the names of any non-DfE programmes that you used your pupil premium (or recovery premium) to fund in the previous academic year.

Programme	Provider
Accelerated Reader	Renaissance
Freckle (Accelerated Maths)	Renaissance

Service pupil premium funding (optional)

For schools that receive this funding, you may wish to provide the following information: how our service pupil premium allocation was spent last academic year.

The school received £2040 to support service pupil premium. This funding is allocated to provide additional pastoral support and enrichment opportunities and is included in the wider strategic budget (please see previous information).

The impact of that spending on service pupil premium eligible pupils.

Service pupil students access the pastoral team to support their wellbeing on an individual basis. This had a positive impact on the students' attendance, which allowed them to participate in the full curriculum and attend a variety of enrichment activities, including subsidised peripatetic lessons and trips.