Pupil Premium
Pupil premium strategy statement – Pensby High School
This statement details our school’s use of pupil premium (and recovery 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
| Detail | Data |
| Number of pupils in school | 921 |
| Proportion (%) of pupil premium eligible pupils | 26% |
| Academic year/years that our current pupil premium strategy plan covers (3 year plans are recommended) | 2024-2027 |
| Date this statement was published | 30th September 2024 |
| Date on which it will be reviewed | 1st December 2027 |
| Statement authorised by | K Flanagan Headteacher |
| Pupil premium lead | H Davies Deputy Headteacher |
| Governor / Trustee lead | S Row/R Henshaw Co-Chair of governors |
Funding overview
| Detail | Amount |
| Pupil premium funding allocation this financial year (April-March) | £207, 475 |
| Pupil premium funding carried forward from previous years (enter £0 if not applicable) | £0 |
| Total budget for this academic year | £207, 475 |
Part A: Pupil premium strategy plan
Statement of intent
Outcomes for all students at Pensby Hish School are good. As a school progress for all students is +0.28 (Progress 8) whereas national and local Progress 8 is –0.16 (local) and -0.03 (national) for all students. These outcomes are mirrored for disadvantaged pupils as disadvantaged pupils at Pensby High School progress at a faster rate than similar schools locally and nationally. Progress 8 for disadvantaged students nationally is –0.57, in the Wirral LA –0.75, whilst at Pensby progress is higher at –0.14.
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 to enable them to succeed in their future education and career goals. The focus of our pupil premium strategy is to support disadvantaged pupils to achieve that goal regardless of their starting points.
High-quality teaching is at the heart of our approach, with a focus on funding coaching and targeted professional development to allow staff to develop quality first teaching in their curriculum areas. This strategy is proven to have the greatest impact on closing the disadvantaged attainment gap as it directly benefits all learners.
Our strategy is also integral to wider school plans for education recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic, notably in its aims to support students to recover lost learning due to gaps in education as well as supporting the emotional mental health. Notably we have seen an increased demand for support with students both inside and outside school being able to regulate behaviour and this has had a direct impact on the support we offer in school. Our approach will be responsive to common challenges and individual needs, rooted in strong pastoral support alongside diagnostic assessment, to ensure pupils individuals needs are supported. not assumptions about the impact of disadvantage. The approaches we have adopted complement each other to help pupils excel. To ensure they are effective we will:
- ensure disadvantaged pupils are challenged in the work that they’re set
- act early to intervene at the point need is identified
Challenges
This details the key challenges to achievement that we have identified among our disadvantaged pupils.
| Challenge number | Detail of challenge |
| 1 | The attendance of disadvantaged pupils is often lower than non-disadvantaged students. Attendance data shows that nationally in 2023-24 disadvantaged students missed 14.6% of sessions due to absence in contrast to Pensby High School where disadvantaged pupils missed 2.5% less sessions than disadvantaged students nationally with 12.1% of sessions missed. As a school we are fighting to maintain our attendance in line with or better than national attendance and continue to strive to improve the attendance of disadvantaged students in school. |
| 2 | Progress in Maths, English, Open P8 and overall P8 which is the highest for disadvantaged students in mixed non-selective schools in the local area. The progress of our disadvantaged was the highest of non selective schools in the local authority. The most significant negative progress across our disadvantaged cohort in 2024 was boys English at -0.38 however this was still higher than P8 for English across all selective and non selective local authority schools. |
| 3 | Whilst outcomes in at Pensby were unusual in 2022 because boys progress was significantly higher than local and national progress. In 2024 the progress of girls was higher than boys with progress 8 for disadvantaged boys being -0.28. National progress for disadvantaged boys was –0.61 and –0.84 for non-selective schools in highly selective areas, with Wirral LA progress at –0.79. The school challenge is to close the progress gap for disadvantaged boys (-0.28) compared to non-disadvantaged boys (+0.29). In 2024 the disadvantaged girls progress 8 was +0.09 which is considerably higher than the National of –0.41, Wirral of –0.71 and non-selective in highly selective areas at –0.65. |
| 4 | On entry assessments, observations and discussions with KS3 pupils indicate that disadvantaged pupils generally have lower levels of reading, comprehension and maths than their peers. This impacts their progress in all subjects. On entry to Year 7 this year, 53% of pupils were below age-related expectations. Of these 53%, 59 students are PP students, 52% of these were not secondary ready. Whilst the gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged has closed from 2019 moving from -0.71 to -0.14 the average gap across the last 4 examined years 2019-2024 is -0.28. |
| 5 | Things are harder for our families. External factors have a disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable families in our community. Pupil premium funding is used to provide support for all. Our observations and discussions with pupils and families have identified social and emotional issues for many pupils, such as anxiety, depression (diagnosed by professionals) and low self-esteem. This is partly driven by concerns regarding future prospects and stability of home environments. These challenges particularly affect disadvantaged pupils. Pastoral referrals for support remain high. 18% of students in 2023-2024 had access mentoring or counselling in school, this includes mosaic mentoring as well as mentoring for social, emotional and wellbeing. There were 600 Intervention blocks of 6 weeks to support students with gaps in their core maths and literacy across 2023 and 2024. |
Intended outcomes
This explains the outcomes we are aiming for by the end of our current strategy plan, and how we will measure whether they have been achieved.
| Intended outcome | Success criteria |
| Improve attendance among disadvantaged pupils, including disadvantaged students who are persistently or severely absent to reduce the gap. | We are fighting to maintain attendance at national attendance. In the local authority attendance in non-selective schools is significantly below national – at Pensby High school our attendance in 2023-2024 was in line with national attendance 92.6% (91% National State Secondary attendance ) 90.2% Wirral and significantly higher than North West attendance 90.8%. The aim is to improve on 2023-2024 outcomes and to continue to be in line with national data and continue to increase PP attainment. |
| Improved attainment among disadvantaged pupils across the open bucket at the end of KS4, particularly in separate sciences and vocational subjects. | By the end of the current plan in 2028/29 attainment of disadvantaged pupils in all areas to exceed progress of pupil premium students nationally and close the progress gap between pupil premium and non-pupil premium students. |
| Improved progress among disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged boys. | By the end of the current plan in 2028/29 to improve the progress of pupil premium boys and close the progress gap between pupil premium boys and non-pupil premium boys. |
| Improved reading, comprehension and mathematical literacy among KS3 students. | Reading and maths tests demonstrate an improvement in reading age and understanding of basic maths skills from baseline key stage 2 data to reduce the number of students who are significantly behind their peers in their core skills. |
| To achieve and sustain improved wellbeing for all pupils, including those who are disadvantaged. | Support high levels of wellbeing by 2028/29 demonstrated by: Qualitative data from student voice surveys. Outcome reports from mosaic mentoring/mentoring. Participation rates in enrichment activities, particularly among disadvantages pupils. |
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: £ [£97,987]
| Activity | Evidence that supports this approach | Challenge number(s) addressed |
| Enhancement of quality first teaching of all students and review of curriculum pathways and provision to ensure guided learning hours meet needs of curriculum areas. We will fund school improvement advisors to support Science, DT, to help embed guidance in school and fund an assistant -SENDCO and nurture teacher to support increasing SEND/EHCP numbers and to support the intervention and inclusion team due to continuing gaps in core literacy and numeracy across transition across 45 feeder primaries. We will fund two pastoral support assistants to build capacity across the pastoral team to support with communication with parents and external providers. We will also fund an additional Assistant Headteacher for two years to support with increased pastoral care and safeguarding concerns. Whilst this additionality is for the whole school community there is an increased need from our pupil premium students. The additional support is in place to help those students in school with the greatest need to enable them to progress alongside their peers. We will fund our coaching programme to ensure quality first teaching and CPD supports staff to develop their individual areas of teaching and learning. | We identify this strategy working because despite being a secondary modern school the progress of students is consistently the highest in the authority when compared with similar schools. outcome of this Pensby was the only non-selective school in the LA where students had a + P8 in Maths in 2022 (0.12), 2023 ( 0.43 ) and 2024 (0.27). Overall boys progress was positive for the last 5 years of validated data (2017 0.04, 2018 0.14, 2019 0.14, 2022 0.26, 2023 0.29 and 2024 0.14) highlighting an increasing trend and the impact of the interventions on supporting students to access the curriculum. Girls progress was the second highest in the LA at 0.44 (inclusive of selective schools) and boys progress was the third highest in the LA (inclusive of selective schools). The November 2023 IDSR noted: (I) Maths value added (0.3) was significantly above the national average and in the highest 20% of all schools in 2023’; (ii) ‘The percentage achieving grade 4+ in maths (72%) was higher than national 70% . The last five years of validated data highlight the year on year increases in P8 (2018 +0.26, 2019 +0.60, 2022 +0.29, 2023 +0.28). 2024 progress is +0.28 the highest progress 8 in the local authority for similar schools and higher than some of the selective schools. The 2023 IDSR also highlights that the progress in our open bucket is significantly above national and in the 74th percentile. These progress outcomes are also related to the schools focus on professional development and quality first teaching to improve outcomes for all learners. Funding of coaching to focus on continual improvement in teaching and learning has been identified as having an impact on outcomes. https://www.theocm.co.uk/educate/manager-coach/coaching-fundamentals The DFE has cited the impact of coaching in schools on developing excellence and accountability of teachers over their own CPD: Coaching for teaching and learning: a practical guide for schools – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) | 1,2,3,4 |
Targeted academic support (for example, tutoring, one-to-one support, structured interventions)
Budgeted cost: £ 68,886
| Activity | Evidence that supports this approach | Challenge number(s) addressed |
| We will fund the purchase of standardised diagnostic reading assessments, Phonics Ruth Miskin programme and Complete Maths programme. Training provision for staff to ensure all assessments are interpreted effectively and intervention is effectively managed. We will fund 1-1 surplus staff intervention to support closing gaps in knowledge and skills. | Standardised tests, including NGRT, Ruth Miskin and Complete Maths can provide reliable insights into the specific strengths and weakness of each pupil to help ensure they receive the correct support through interventions or teacher instruction. We will also review the use of reading intervention programmes including looking at FFT decoding and comprehension programmes such as FFT reading quest and FFT reciprocal reading to try to support struggling readers on transition to secondary. We identify this strategy working because despite being a secondary modern school the progress of students is consistently the highest in the authority when compared with similar schools. outcome of this Pensby was the only non-selective school in the LA where students had a + P8 in Maths (+0.27) and English (+0.24) The last three years of validated data in Maths highlight the consistency year on year in P8 2022 +0.12, 2023 +0.25). 2024 progress is +0.27 the highest progress 8 in the local authority for similar schools and higher than some of the selective schools. This is mirrored in English P8 2022 +0.24, 2023 +0.23). 2024 progress is +0.24. Both these sets of data highlight the impact of the interventions on supporting students to access the curriculum. About NGRT – GL Assessment (gl-assessment.co.uk) Home – Ruth Miskin Literacy Complete Mathematics – Home (completemaths.com) | 2,3,4 |
Wider strategies (for example, related to attendance, behaviour, wellbeing)
Budgeted cost: £ [150,268]
| Activity | Evidence that supports this approach | Challenge number(s) addressed |
| Continued developed of the Mosaic Mentoring programme, emotional wellbeing mentoring and the funding of a family advocate to support all students. We will fund two additional wellbeing mentors to support the increased need for 1-1 mentoring support. We will fund supported places for work experience for disadvantaged students in Year 11 through our careers advisor which includes additional careers appointments and support with work experience placements and careers interviews. | The Prince’s Trust Mosaic mentoring programme has an impact on reducing barriers disadvantaged students have when accessing careers and wider Post 16 and employment opportunities. The impact of this can be identified through the individual case studies of students engaged in the programme which had an impact on a variety of factors: attendance, attainment, destination, suspensions & exclusions. Mosaic moves to The Prince’s Trust | News and views | About The Trust | The Prince’s Trust (princes-trust.org.uk) | 1,5 |
| To improve attendance of all students, including disadvantaged. We will fund leadership support for attendance across the pastoral team to ensure attendance remains a key focus to support wider issues around attainment and well-being. Pastoral staff will be given time in CPD sessions to develop and implement new procedures. | The DFE guidance has been informed by engagement with schools that have significantly reduced persistent absence. Working together to improve school attendance – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) Pensby High School will embed these guiding principles into practice. We have identified these strategies as having a significant impact on outcomes due to attendance outcomes which both as a school and pupil premium cohort are consistently above national. Disadvantaged students in 2023-2024 missed 14.6% of sessions nationally but at Pensby they missed 12.1% sessions. | 1,2,3,4,5 |
| Funding will be put in place to support with extra-curricular provision to ensure barriers are removed to access clubs, trips and allow access to wider learning resources. Funding will also be provided for acute issues as required. | Based on our experiences and those of similar schools, we have identified a need to set an amount aside to ensure access to extra-curricular opportunities and to support wider emergency needs. Extra- curricular participation is identified by the DFE as integral for increasing social mobility: Extracurricular activities to develop life skills – findings and lessons for practice (publishing.service.gov.uk) Pupil Premium funding can be used at the school’s discretion to part fund trips and visits for PP pupils. This will be at the discretion of Senior Leaders and will focus primarily on key cultural events, such as Year 7 residential and pantomime, Brilliant Club, Duke of Edinburgh aware etc etc. In addition, we will always look to support essential curriculum activity, such as the geography field trip. Funds available will be reviewed as required, but the key aspect is the delivery of the whole school curricular and extra-curricular provision and not the trip or visit per se. | 1,5 |
Total budgeted cost: £ 347,141
Part B: Review of the previous academic year: Outcomes for disadvantaged pupils
Disadvantaged pupils at Pensby High School progress at a faster rate than similar schools locally and nationally. Progress 8 for disadvantaged students nationally is –0.57 in the Wirral LA –0.75 whilst at Pensby progress is higher at –0.14. The North West Progress 8 score for all students was –0.17. Whilst disadvantaged P8 was -0.14 in 2024 at Pensby, 2023 progress 8 for disadvantage students was +0.03 which was significantly above both local and national progress data. This data evidences the impact of the previous school pupil premium strategy on outcomes.
Whilst outcomes in at Pensby were unusual in 2022 because boys progress was significantly higher than local and national progress. In 2024 the progress of girls was higher than boys with progress 8 for disadvantaged boys being -0.28. National progress for disadvantaged boys was –0.61 and –0.84 for non-selective schools in highly selective areas, with Wirral LA progress at –0.79. The school challenge is to close the progress gap for disadvantaged boys (-0.28) compared to non-disadvantaged boys (+0.29).
In 2024 the disadvantaged girls progress 8 was +0.09 which is considerably higher than the National of –0.41, Wirral of –0.71 and non-selective in highly selective areas at –0.65.
The attainment of disadvantaged students at Pensby High school is also higher than national and similar schools in the local authority. The Attainment 8 score for disadvantaged students nationally is 34.5 and 31.3 in the local authority. At Pensby the Attainment 8 score for disadvantaged pupils is higher than both national and local at 37.8. The gap between the Progress 8 and Attainment 8 scores of our disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils has been converse to the national trend and has reduced year on year post pandemic.
We attribute the outcomes to a range of strategies which have had an impact on attainment and progress. Including:
- Funding for professional development to support teachers to develop quality first teaching in their curriculum areas.
- A wide range of funded extra-curricular opportunities and trips including music tuition, funded support for trips and Duke of Edinburgh expeditions (100% funded). Across 2022-2024 an average of 57% disadvantaged take part in one or more extra-curricular club each year with highest participation rates in Year 7 with an average of 68% of disadvantaged students taking part in one or more clubs. 92% of students in Year 11 participate in extra-curricular clubs/support trips (this includes GCSE intervention support and Duke of Edinburgh).
- Community and family support through provision of a family advocate in school and wider support for families including food and clothing provision.
The impact of this on attendance figures, wellbeing and attainment cannot be always extrapolated from each other but the outcomes regarding attainment and attendance for disadvantaged pupils are higher than that on similar schools locally and nationally highlighting the significant impact of the provisions across the school.
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 |
| Mosaic Mentoring- Princes Trust | Mosaic moves to The Prince’s Trust | News and views | About The Trust | The Prince’s Trust (princes-trust.org.uk) |
| Ruth Miskin Phonics | Home – Ruth Miskin Literacy |
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
Funding was allocated across all disadvantaged students and service students as outlined in the report above.
1% of the student population receive service pupil premium allocation.
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