Pupil premium

Pupil Premium funding is given to schools to help support students with disadvantage to close the gap in attainment between them and their peers.

The Premium is allocated to schools for every student who has been in receipt of free school meals at any time in the previous six years as well as Looked After Children and those in Armed Services families.

Although there are different types of pupil premium allocations, UTC pupil premium students were only drawn from those who have been eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) at any time in the last six years:

FSM6 – £935 per student. 

FSM6: 42 students = £39,270

Barriers

Disadvantaged students face a range of barriers to educational achievement in relation to their peers at South Bank UTC. The main barriers include:

• Access to appropriate space and environment at home to study independently.
• Access to technology to facilitate learning off site.
• Access to funding for uniform.
• Access to funding for transport, especially outside London and on underground services.
• Access to a healthy, balanced diet in line with the needs of young people.
• Access to targeted support to close the achievement gap, noting that students join the UTC in Year 10 often with a legacy of low achievement and poor levels of progress over time.
• Access to co-curricular opportunities.
• Access to high quality, independent advice and guidance.
• Access to training and development likely to develop employability or earnings power.
• Access to professional networks linked to pathways into further education, employment and training.
• South Bank UTC allocated additional Pupil Premium funding according to its Pupil Premium Strategy so as to have maximum impact in a manner targeted at individual students.

Objectives

• Use funding to enhance staffing complement in order to offer reduced class sizes and enhanced, targeted learning support in key areas of the curriculum, especially in English, maths and engineering;
• Use funding to offer a range of enrichment activities which enhance students’ employability, such as CAD;
• Use funding to offer high quality pastoral care and support, close liaison with parents and work to support high levels of attendance;
• Use funding to offer supervised independent study sessions, to remove barriers to learning outside the UTC;
• Use funding to offer supplementary tuition in all subject areas, for example through YipiYap tutors in maths and English
  Use funding to offer enhanced access to software including GCSE Pod
• Use funding to cover cost of Professional Qualification study courses and examinations, leading to additional qualifications
• Use funding to provide one to one, group and online careers information and guidance
• Use funding to provide wide range of additionality in the form of extra-curricular activities including enrichment courses and expert witness sessions
• Provide subsidy and funding support for educational trips, visits and resources;
• Provide support for business dress and equipment for students who need support;
• Use funding to provide access to educational technology both at the UTC through laptop and tablet access, but also outside the UTC through online technologies such as OneNote.
• Measuring the impact of Pupil Premium funding

Every year the UTC will commission a Pupil Premium audit. This audit analyses the impact of all pupil premium expenditure and makes recommendations for future development.  At the start of each academic year, the UTC will publish an analysis of how Pupil Premium funding was spent, and most importantly, the impact it has had in raising standards and narrowing the gap in performance to students nationally who are not in receipt of Pupil Premium funding.

Activities

• Subsidy of staffing budget to enable small group sizes in Year 10 – Year 11 in 2017-18;
• Additional non-teaching pastoral staffing deployed to build positive working with families
• Additional attendance officer provision to reduce absence of disadvantaged students
• Clear, focused intervention to support the progress of disadvantaged students through additional provision
• Trips, visits and projects to support engagement and pathways
• Careers advice and guidance for Year 11 students to support transitions and raise aspirations
• Active delivery of employability skills to increase employability through lessons and projects with employer partners
• Curriculum design: BTEC assignment structure supported disadvantaged students, many of whom are less able to study for examinations at home
• Additional support through evening and weekend revision classes
• Breakfast club for Year 11 in examination season, non-contributory for FSM students
• Additional support through dedicated subject-specialist TAs in English and maths creating additional small groups and withdrawal;
• Tutoring via YipiYap
• Peer mentoring and (coming in 2019) LSBU-led mentoring
• Sponsor and industry support eg Expert Witness sessions, Skanska graduate team
• Enrichment offer including language acquisition;
• Supervised independent study sessions running with UTC computer facilities to remove barriers to learning outside the UTC;
• Hardship funding in place to support family requests for assistance with business dress;
• BYOD policy on mobile devices removes further barriers to the access to technology outside lessons;
• Cloud-based and networked resources in place to enable students to access learning remotely and on a range of devices.

Impact

Attainment 8 – all students 44.7 points; disadvantaged 43.5 points. This means there was an in-school gap of 1.2 points, which is narrow but does indicate performance was lower for disadvantaged students. However, the 43.5 for UTC disadvantaged students was well above the national average (2017) of 36.9 points, representing a positive gap of 6.6 points.