The government continues to provide funding targeted at addressing underlying inequalities and aiming to tackle the disadvantages that some children experience in life. As a school we use the money carefully to ensure that our vulnerable children achieved the best support possible. One of the measures for assessing the impact of this funding is to look at those children who claim free school meals (FSM).

The Pupil Premium Funding was introduced in 2011 and is a sum of money given to schools each year by the Government to improve the attainment of disadvantaged children. Often, children who are entitled to pupil premium face challenges such as poor language and communication skills, lack of confidence and issues with attendance and punctuality. The pupil premium is intended to directly benefit the children who are eligible, helping to narrow the gap between them and their classmates.

Is my child eligible?

The Pupil Premium funding is allocated to the following groups of children:

• Children who have qualified for free school meals at any point in the past six years.
• Children who are or have been looked after under local authority care for more than one day.
• Children from service families who receive a child pension from the Ministry of Defence.

In March 2018 the Government announced that free school meals would only be available to children in KS2 whose families have a net income of £7,400 or under, effective from 1 April 2018. If your child was previously entitled to free school meals but is no longer, they will still receive pupil premium based on the 'Ever 6' qualification (a pupil who has ever had free school meals in the past six years).

Prior to April 2018, children qualified for free school meals – and accordingly pupil premium – if parents received any of the following benefits:

• Income support
• Income-based jobseekers’ allowance
• Income-related employment and support allowance
• Support under Part IV of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• The guaranteed element of state pension credit
• Child tax credit, provided that you are not also entitled to working tax credit and have an annual gross income of £16,190 or less

These benefits have now been rolled into a single benefit, called Universal Credit. From April 2018, free school meals and pupil premium will only be allocated to pupils with a family income under £7,400 (net) per year.

If your child qualifies for free school meals, it’s important that you tell us – even if they take a packed lunch – as this enables us to claim pupil premium.

Please click here to download the relevant forms to apply for Free School Meals for your child (ren) in Key Stage 2

Please see the documents below for our pupil premium reports and strategy.

Sports Premium

The government has continued its pledge to provide Sports Premium Funding to schools for the next academic year. The money must be used to improve the provision of PE and school sport to enable high quality, sustainable provision and greater participation by children.

PE and school sport play a very important part in the life of John Ray Junior School. We believe that PE and school sport contribute to the holistic development of our children and through participation, our children build and learn more about our core values. We are therefore delighted to be able to use the approximate £10,000 sport premium funding to support the development of P.E. and school sport in the following ways:

• continue to develop a specialist Sports Coach to deliver high quality PE & Sports lessons during curriculum time and coordinate competitive sport within and across schools.
• provide quality assured professional development opportunities for teachers enabling quality teaching and learning for all children through a training partnership with a  specialist PE Consultant, including devising ways to assess and measure the achievement of children in PE and developing high quality planning for PE that encourages continuous activity throughout PE sessions and the development of progressive skills
• continue to subscribe to the local sports ‘hub’ and district sporting leagues to enable more children to take part in inter-school sporting activities
• provide focused team activities at lunchtime through the provision of a Sport Assistant and training of MDA's to facilitate additional activity based play
• provide a ‘Bike Ability’ cycling proficiency training course for year 6
• continue to develop and provide a wide range of extra -curricular sport activities
• hold a Healthy Living Week including inviting local sports providers in to demonstrate a variety of sports to encourage participation beyond school hours and select potential new sports/activities to introduce to the curriculum
• provide training for sports assistant and lead MDA to deliver ‘play leader’ training to year 5 and 6 children

Our overall aim is to raise standards in PE and school sport increasing the participation and opportunities offered to our children. We aim to provide higher quality lessons and improved learning for all.

Please see below, our Sports Premium Statement and information regarding our Year 6 swimming levels against the national curriculum requirements.

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