What is Pupil Premium?
Pupil premium provides our school with additional funding; this funding allows us as a school to target schools from disadvantaged backgrounds to ensure they receive the same opportunities and access the same trips and in school activities. From September 2022, the premium is worth £1385 for any child who has been in receipt of Free School Meals (FSM) in the past 6 years. £2140 per student who is either continuously looked after for at least six months, or has been adopted from care or has left care under a ‘Special Guardianship’ or a ‘Residence Order’. £320 for any child who has a parent(s) currently serving in any branch of the armed forces or currently receives a pension from the Ministry of Defence.

At St Matthew’s we utilise the Pupil Premium Grant to ensure that all pupils have equitable access to our curriculum and to wider opportunities.  You can read more about how we spend the grant by clicking on the links below.  

How many St Matthew’s pupils are eligible for Pupil Premium?
Currently, 23.3% of our pupil roll is currently eligible for Pupil Premium.

Is there an issue with eligible pupils not applying for FSM?
Yes. Even though a lot of our children may be eligible for Universal Infant Free School Meal (UIFSM) the school will receive extra money from an application for FSM. If you are eligible to any of the following benefits than please contact the school office or contact the Free School Meal department at Northumberland Council on 01670 620444.

The eligible benefits are:

• Income Support (IS)
• Income Based Job Seekers Allowance
• An income-related employment and support allowance
• Support under part IV of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• Child Tax Credit (without Working Tax Credit)

If you are entitled to any of these benefits please get in touch as we are not notified by the Local Authority automatically.

How is its impact measured?
The impact of our Pupil Premium funding is measured in an annual report, compiled by the Headteacher and approved by our governing body on a yearly basis. It covers what we intended to achieve and if it was achieved as well as what can be improved.

St Matthew’s recognises the impact that PE has on the well-being and health of our children. Our school believes that a varied and interesting PE curriculum can really help our children to perform and engaging more in both PE and it helps with their academic achievement in other subjects around our school.

The Primary School Sport’s Funding enables us to continue and explore new sport to help inspire our children into becoming the Olympians and athletes of tomorrow. We hire-in experienced and talented sports coaches who help to deliver lessons and train up and teach our staff so that we can provide a high quality curriculum.  

What is the Primary Sports Premium?
The government has increased its funding into schools around the entire country be a total of £150 million per year to provide substantial benefit to primary school sport. The funding is managed jointly by the Department for Education and Healthy and Culture. The money will go directly to schools to allow them to improve the well-being and sports curriculum throughout their school.

Purpose of the Funding
Schools have to decide on what they wish to spend their school sports grant on, this is covered by guidelines published by the DfE. The current guidelines state that schools can spend money on:

Hiring qualified sports coaches to help inspire and improve our own school’s sport teaching capabilities.
Funding for professional development opportunities throughout the year.
Increasing participation in external competitions and events. 
Providing cover teachers and supervisors when teachers attend CPD or events with our children.
Purchase of high-quality PE equipment to enrich and improve our curriculum offer.  

Impact of the Funding
Please see the links below to read about the impact of our sports premium spending over the last few years.