Pupil Premium

At Melbourn Primary School we strive to provide an environment where all children and all school members can be happy, healthy and safe and achieve their full social and intellectual potential. We do this by:

• Providing a caring and supportive environment
• Creating stimulating and exciting opportunities for learning
• Developing positive relationships based on respect of self and others
• Working in partnership with parents and carers.

At Melbourn Primary we strive to meet the needs of children and families whose circumstances may make them vulnerable and to minimise gaps in the progress children are making. The school works very effectively in partnership with the parents and carers of potentially vulnerable children to help to break down barriers to learning and progress children occasionally encounter.  The Pupil Premium was introduced in 2011 and was designed to ensure that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the children who need it most.  The premium is available for children eligible for free school meals, those who have had free school meals at any point in the last six years, looked after children and children of parents in the Services. Schools are free to spend the extra funding as they see fit but the government requires schools to publish information about how they use it.

“The Government believes that the Pupil Premium, which is additional to main school funding, is the best way to address the current underlying inequalities between children eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) and their peers by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the pupils who most need it.” DfE website

We aim to work effectively with every child; we support them where necessary to overcome academic or emotional barriers that could prevent optimum learning.  We want to enable all children to participate in the full range of activities offered within and beyond the school to ensure they have the very best learning experience and make outstanding progress. We believe that the first step in achieving this is through the provision of high quality first teaching and then if appropriate the provision of proven interventions which are planned, measured and monitored by the SENDco.

Barriers to Educational Achievement faced by our Pupil Premium Children

The barriers our children experience include:

• Speech and Language
• Exposure to a broad vocabulary
• Access to first-hand experiences
• Working below the baseline for EYFS
• Attendance
• Social and emotional needs

How we will spend and our Pupil Premium to overcome these Barriers and how we review the impact of this spending

Please see the pupil premium strategy to see the yearly plan we have for spending our pupil premium allocation.  

Please see our pupil premium review to see the impact this has had.

71% of our Pupil Premium children are considered as having 'Multiple Needs'. This means that along with being Pupil Premium they may also have attendance concerns, SEND or safeguarding concerns. We believe it is important to develop the whole child and dedicate a portion of our funding to supporting the social and emotional needs of our pupils along with their academic progress. We provide '1:1 Mentoring' (for academic progress), nurture groups, individualised learning plans (Assess, Plan, Do, Reviews), Boxall Profiling, behaviour monitoring and a Family Support Worker as part of our Pupil Premium Package. If you would like to learn more about this, please contact the office and we will be able to make case studies available for you.

Please find below a link to the free school meal online application form: 

www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/freeschoolmeals

If you have any questions, please contact our family support worker.

Support available from the school for Pupil Premium children (including uniform)

Uniform

The school will provide an annual/bi annual allocation of uniform. To assist the school office, please try to order in the second half of the summer term ready for the new school year.

Day trips and inspiration days

The school will pay half the voluntary contribution requested for day trips and inspiration days.  Usually parental contribution should be made via the MCAS portal selecting the pupil premium option of the relevant trip or inspiration day.  Occasionally, when the contribution is of low value we will ask that parents give cash to the class teacher on the day of the event, in which case please give half of the requested contribution.

Residential trips

Traditionally Melbourn Primary School organises two residential trips.  Currently these are four days and three nights at Burwell House in Cambridgeshire for children in Year 4 and four nights and five days at Condover House in Shropshire for children in year 6.  Both trips take place in the summer term but you will be asked to commit to the trip during the Autumn term before.  A deposit will be required to secure a place.  You will be asked to pay half of the total required deposit and half of each of the stage payments.

Music lessons

We offer children the opportunity to learn a range of musical instruments at Melbourn Primary School outside the normal music curriculum.  These include violin, clarinet, flute, drums and piano and a visiting music teacher will give the lesson during the school day. Please note that there is a waiting list for some instruments.  If you would like your child to learn a musical instrument, the school will pay half the tuition fees.  Lessons normally commence at the beginning of the school year but there may be the possibility to start midyear depending on availability.

Occasional resources

From time to time class teachers may suggest that parents purchase a particular book for their child to use in class.  On these occasions, the school will provide the book in question.

Summary

If you would like to claim any of the above please email Miss Hawkins at SHawkins@melbourn.cambs.sch.uk

Please read the information below which gives details of our Pupil Premium Grant and how we allocate the funding.

Pupil Premium Strategy 2022-2023

Pupil Premium Strategy 2021-2022