Pupil Premium Plus funding
To raise the educational outcomes of children in care, the government gives us extra money called the Pupil Premium Plus. Pupil Premium Plus is paid directly to the school in the middle of the year. The second payment is made once the virtual school has seen the Personal Education Plan which will include details of how the extra money will be spent. A small amount of Pupil Premium Plus is used by the virtual school to encourage creative ideas that will help schools meet the needs of children in care.
Ideas for using Pupil Premium Plus
Our regular monitoring of how PP+ is used in our schools shows it's most frequently used to provide additional support outside the classroom. This is often done through 1:1 interventions, curriculum-related trips and additional resources, such as ICT equipment.
Here are some further ideas for how local schools have used this funding:
- 1:1 tuition or mentoring tailored to the pupil’s individual needs and strengths to boost educational outcomes, with regular reviews of progress. There is a lot of choice of organisations that can provide this support for example Tutor Trust (not for profit), Tute, Randstad, UK Military Mentors. The Virtual School can offer advice on some of these.
- Support staff. Transitional times, such as moving between schools, key stages or even between lessons, can be particularly difficult for some children to handle so they need to be given extra preparation for this. Extra staff time may be needed to go through the timetable with them at the start of each day.
- Enrichment activities. Use the PEP to identify a child’s particular interest, if they are gifted in a particular area or want to follow a career path. You can then pay for activities in these areas, such as music lessons or sports.
- Capacity-building projects with a therapeutic focus. This could be outdoor activity groups that use a therapeutic approach to improve children’s emotional wellbeing, build confidence, resilience and social skills.
- Letterbox Club, supporting reading and maths. 6 monthly parcel deliveries of reading and maths materials to help and encourage reading, support maths and encourage relationship building - around the sharing aspect of the parcel. Every year, from the start of May until October, a parcel is delivered to Rochdale’s Cared for Children in Year 5 and Year7. More recently, the Virtual School introduced the delivery of Reception parcels for Early Years Cared for Children too.
- Beanstalk, supporting children to improve their reading. Volunteers support children with their reading to build their confidence by focusing on their individual interests.
- Laptops for all looked after children in years 10 and 11. Each autumn term, we give 14 and 15-year-olds a new laptop as they enter year 10 which is theirs to keep. We prioritise this age group as they need access to a computer to support their education as they approach the last 2 years at high school.