Pupil Premium at Etwall Primary School
Helping every child to achieve, participate and thrive
At Etwall Primary School, we have high expectations for every child.
We know that children come to school with different experiences, strengths and needs. For some children, financial circumstances or other barriers can make it more difficult to access the same opportunities or achieve as well as their peers.
Pupil Premium funding helps us to remove these barriers.
Our aim is not simply to provide additional support. We want children eligible for Pupil Premium to make strong progress, achieve well, feel confident and included, and benefit fully from everything Etwall has to offer.
Our current Pupil Premium Strategy covers 2024–2027 and is reviewed annually.
What matters to us?
We want children eligible for Pupil Premium to have:
📚 Strong progress and achievement
High-quality teaching and carefully targeted support so that children develop secure foundations in reading, writing, phonics and mathematics and make good progress from their individual starting points.
🌟 The same opportunities
Access to clubs, trips, visits, enrichment activities, leadership opportunities and the wider experiences that make primary school memorable.
💙 Support when they need it
Pastoral, emotional and family support where this helps a child to feel secure, confident and ready to learn.
🙌 A sense of belonging
Every child should feel included, valued and successful within our school community.
🎯 High expectations
Being eligible for Pupil Premium does not change what we believe a child can achieve. We want children to develop confidence, independence and ambition for their future.
These priorities reflect Etwall's strategy, which focuses on attainment, phonics, attendance, enrichment, social and emotional needs and the significant overlap between disadvantage and SEND within the school.
How do we use Pupil Premium?
👩🏫 Great teaching comes first
The most important thing we can give children is consistently high-quality teaching.
Our strategy therefore places a strong emphasis on teaching, particularly phonics, early reading, writing and mathematics. This includes staff development, additional teaching capacity and targeted approaches for children who need extra help.
Where children need more support, we use assessment to identify barriers to learning and provide carefully matched teaching, intervention and adaptations.
📖 Building strong foundations
We have identified early literacy, particularly in Years 1 and 2, as an important priority.
Our work includes:
- additional support for children who need help blending sounds
- carefully targeted phonics teaching
- developing children's reading fluency and vocabulary
- strengthening spelling, handwriting and sentence construction
- targeted support for children who find writing more difficult
- visual supports and scaffolds where these help children to access learning independently.
We want to intervene early so that gaps do not become barriers to children's learning as they move through school.
🌍 Opportunities beyond the classroom
Achievement is about more than academic results.
We want children eligible for Pupil Premium to participate fully in the wider life of Etwall.
Our strategy therefore includes support for clubs, curriculum trips, educational visits and enrichment opportunities, alongside leadership and pupil voice opportunities.
We offer lunchtime activities as well as after-school opportunities because we know that practical arrangements can sometimes make attending after-school clubs more difficult. We also provide financial support towards curriculum visits for disadvantaged pupils and a 33% discount on enrichment activities.
Financial difficulty should not be the reason a child misses an important opportunity.
💙 Wellbeing and family support
Children learn best when they feel safe, supported and ready to learn.
Some children eligible for Pupil Premium benefit from additional emotional or family support. At Etwall this can include support from our ELSA and Family Support Worker, alongside referrals to external services where appropriate.
During the review period, 71% of our Pupil Premium children accessed support from our ELSA or Family Support Worker. Support included friendship difficulties, family changes, separation, bereavement, worries and home circumstances, alongside more targeted interventions where needed.
Supporting wellbeing isn't separate from learning. Helping children to feel secure and ready to learn gives them a stronger foundation from which to participate and succeed.
⭐ Progress worth celebrating
We carefully monitor the progress and experiences of children eligible for Pupil Premium so that we can identify what is working and where we need to do more.
There is much to celebrate.
In Year 6 in 2025/26, Pupil Premium pupils achieved:
| Outcome | Pupil Premium pupils achieving the expected standard |
|---|---|
| 📖 Reading | 100% |
| ✏️ Writing | 73% |
| ➗ Mathematics | 91% |
In reading, 36% of Pupil Premium pupils also achieved greater depth.
Our strategy identifies Year 6 as a particularly strong example of impact, while also recognising that achievement is not yet consistent across every year group which is why early reading, writing and inclusive teaching remain important priorities.
🧩 Understanding every child
Supporting disadvantaged children isn't about applying the same solution to everyone.
At Etwall, 50 children, representing 15% of our pupils, are currently eligible for Pupil Premium, and 20 of those 50 pupils are also identified as having SEND.
This is important because children's barriers to learning can be different.
We therefore look carefully at individual children's learning, progress, attendance, SEND, wellbeing, participation and family circumstances when deciding what support will make the greatest difference.
Our focus is always on the child, not the label.
Regular attendance gives children the greatest opportunity to benefit from teaching, friendships and the wider life of school.
Improving attendance for disadvantaged pupils remains an important priority for us. Our strategy includes early identification of concerns alongside communication with families, pastoral support, Family Support Worker involvement and personalised support where appropriate.
We approach attendance supportively, working with families to understand barriers and help children attend regularly wherever possible.
👨👩👧 Working with families
Parents and carers know their children best.
We want to work in partnership with families so that we understand the things that may be making school or learning more difficult and can provide the right support.
Our strategy includes opportunities for parent voice, family support, workshops, coffee mornings, information sessions and family support drop-ins.
If there is something affecting your child, we would always encourage you to talk to us. Sometimes relatively small changes or practical support can make a significant difference.
Our commitment
For us, Pupil Premium is about removing barriers and opening opportunities.
We want children eligible for Pupil Premium to:
Achieve well 📚
Make strong progress 📈
Attend regularly 🏫
Feel confident and supported 💙
Take part 🙌
Experience new opportunities 🌍
Develop independence and ambition ⭐
Above all, we want every child at Etwall to know that we believe in what they can achieve.
📄 Our Pupil Premium Strategy
Our full Pupil Premium Strategy provides detailed information about:
- the challenges we have identified
- our intended outcomes
- how Pupil Premium funding is allocated
- the evidence underpinning our approaches
- how we evaluate impact
- outcomes for disadvantaged pupils.
Our current strategy covers 2024–2027 and was reviewed in October 2026. The strategy records a current Pupil Premium allocation of £76,310, with a total budget of £94,181 when the additional school budget allocation is included.