Pupil premium plus (PP+)
Pupil Premium Plus provides additional funding for education settings to support the progress and educational attainment of children in care.
The funding is provided by the Department of Education and the Virtual School devolves it to education settings.
All children in care to West Northamptonshire Council enrolled in school from reception to year 11 are eligible.
Conditions of PP+ funding
If a school completes an adequate termly Personal Education Plan (PEP) for the child the Virtual School will devolve the PP+ payment for the next term.
The Pupil Premium Plus (PP+) is grant funding from the DfE to raise the achievement of looked after children and to close the gap with their peers.
For the financial year 2023 to 2024 the Virtual School will receive £2,530 of PP+ funding for eligible pupils from Year R to 11 who are looked after by North and West Northamptonshire Local Authorities.
The current conditions of grant are set out in the Department for Education guidance.
Please note that these arrangements are for children who are looked after by North Northamptonshire Council and West Northamptonshire Council, wherever they are living. Other arrangements will apply to children looked after by other local authorities, even if they are attending Northamptonshire education settings.
Eligibility
ESFA will allocate to local authorities in June 2023 a provisional amount of £2,530 per child looked after for at least one day, as recorded in the March 2022 children looked-after data return (SSDA903), and aged 4 to 15 on 31 August 2021.
ESFA will update and finalise this allocation in December 2023 based on the number of children looked after for at least one day during the year ending March 2023, as recorded in the March 2023 children looked-after data return (SSDA903), and aged 4 to 15 on 31 August 2022.
Virtual School Head
The Children and Families Act 2014 requires all Local Authorities to have a Virtual School Head (VSH) who has the responsibility of ensuring the local authority’s duty to promote the education achievement of looked after children is discharged.
VSHs are responsible for managing pupil premium funding for the children they look after and for allocating it to education settings.
VSHs, working with education settings, should implement PP+ arrangements for all looked-after children, in need of support for whom the authority is responsible, in accordance with the latest conditions of grant published by the department and any supplementary departmental advice it issues. VSHs have considerable flexibility in the use of PP+ funding to maximise its impact for individual looked-after children as well as the looked-after cohort.
2023 to 2024 financial year
As per the previous year, The Northamptonshire Virtual School will divide the total amount of £2,530 into three instalments.
- £840 in the summer term
- £845 in the autumn term
- £845 in the spring term
The termly instalment will be devolved automatically to education settings upon completion of a Personal Education Plan (PEP) in the previous term. The Virtual School will withhold PP+ funding from education settings whose plans are quality assured as ‘inadequate’ unless there are exceptional circumstances. The PEP document will need to provide a comprehensive plan of how the funding will be spent and must be linked to clear SMART targets.
If a child is new to care and a PEP is completed in the term they enter care, the PP+ monies for that term will be devolved to schools.
Qualifying in county schools will be paid by North Northamptonshire Council and West Northamptonshire Council as part of the monthly school top-up transfers:
- Itemised information regarding the funding transmitted to in county schools is available using the ‘school monthly top ups’ data sheet (available on the School’s Finance section)
- Please select the appropriate spreadsheet for West or North settings and the financial year in question, copy your school or setting’s ‘Oracle Cost Centre code’ from the ‘Schools Datatable’ tab, paste this code into cell C14 of the ‘LA School Funding Summary’ tab, and click on the ‘Click Here to Reveal’ button.
- Pupil Premium Plus payments from the summer term 2020 onwards can be identified with the payment description Northamptonshire Pupil Premium Plus ([Term][Year])
Qualifying out of county schools will be paid by North Northamptonshire Council and West Northamptonshire Council through BACs payments.
- Out of county Schools and settings who have not previously received payments from North Northamptonshire Council or West Northamptonshire Council will be contacted with a request for their financial details. Schools and settings who have previously been paid by North or West Northamptonshire, but have changed their details, will also be required to complete and return an ‘Out of County Schools Bank Details Form’ to the Virtual School.
As the Virtual School devolves the full amount of PP+ to education settings, it is not possible for education settings to apply for extra funding in addition to that already devolved.
Monitoring impact
The Virtual School and the education setting, namely the designated teacher, are jointly responsible for ensuring that the PP+ is being spent appropriately and for the benefit of the cohort of looked-after children and their individual needs.
The impact of the PP+ will be measured within the termly PEP review through the evaluation of the SMART targets which have been set. PP+ should be used on evidence-based interventions that support progress in the following areas:
- academic achievement and progress
- attendance and inclusion
- social and emotional development
- wider achievement
- transition
When it won't be provided
Pupil Premium Plus will not be used to replace funding which should already have been allocated to the school to support the child.
It will specifically not fund services that must be provided by other statutory bodies (e.g. Education, Health and Care).
Pupil Premium Plus will not be provided to education settings when the termly PEP review is not completed.
Early Years Pupil Premium
The Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) gives providers additional funding to support disadvantaged three- and four-year-old pupils.
The Virtual School Head is responsible for informing a provider that a child in care to Northamptonshire is attending their setting. The setting is responsible for applying for EYPP to the local authority in which the setting is based.
Further information:
Previously looked after children
In addition, and through a separate process, schools will be allocated for each child adopted from care in England and Wales, subject to a child arrangement order or special guardianship order, £2,530 passed directly to the school. However, this grant is outside the remit of the Virtual School Head and will not be distributed by the Virtual School.
Support and advice
The Virtual School is happy to discuss the arrangements and to support schools with training. Other support can be found at:
The Recovery Premium (RPG) is part of the government’s package of funding to support education recovery following the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. It is a time-limited grant for the 2021 to 2022 to the 2023 to 2024 academic years.
Eligibility
RPG is allocated to local authorities based on the number of LAC supported by the authority. LAC are defined in the Children Act 1989 as those who are in the care of, or provided with accommodation by, an English local authority.
It is for the local authority to decide how much of this funding to pass on to the child’s school.
The RPG will be paid to the local authority in quarterly instalments by:
- 30 September 2022
- 30 December 2022
- 31 March 2023
- 30 June 2023
The allocation amount will be confirmed to the local authority shortly prior to each instalment.
These arrangements are for children who are looked after by North Northamptonshire Council and West Northamptonshire Council, wherever they are living. Other arrangements will apply to children looked after by other local authorities, even if they are attending Northamptonshire education settings.
2022/23 financial year
The Northamptonshire Virtual School will divide the total amount into two instalments. Recovery premium allocations will be calculated on a per pupil basis, based on the following rates.
Mainstream education
- £145 per eligible pupil in primary schools (£73 first instalment and £72 second instalment)
- £276 per eligible pupil in secondary schools (£138 first instalment and £138 second instalment)
The higher rate for secondary schools reflects evidence that the pandemic has had a greater impact on these pupils’ learning that these pupils have less time remaining in school.
Other schools
For other eligible schools, including special education units in mainstream schools, the rate is double the mainstream rate:
- £290 per pupil in primary education (£145 first instalment and £145 second instalment)
- £552 per pupil in secondary education (£276 first instalment and £276 second instalment)
The termly instalment will be devolved automatically to education settings. The first instalment will be made for any child who is in care on 21st November 2022 and will be paid in January 2023. The second instalment will be made for any child in care on 1st March 2023 and will be paid in April 2023.
The PEP document will need to provide a comprehensive plan of how the funding will be spent and must be linked to clear SMART targets.
For details on how the grant will be devolved please refer to the PP+ section.
As the Virtual School devolves the full amount of RPG to education settings, it is not possible for education settings to apply for extra funding in addition to that already devolved.
Using recovery premium funding
Schools should spend this premium on evidence-based approaches to support pupils. In line with the Education Endowment Foundation’s pupil premium guide, activities should include those that:
- support the quality of teaching
- provide targeted academic support
- deal with non-academic barriers to success in school, such as attendance, behaviour and social and emotional support
The recovery premium must be clearly identified in the child’s PEP and be linked to clear SMART targets or actions.
Support and advice
The Virtual School is happy to discuss the arrangements and to support schools with training. Other support can be found at:
The Virtual School automatically transfers the full amount of PP+ funding to education settings. This is given in termly instalments and the Virtual School devolves £2,530 annually per eligible child.
| Term | Value of PP+ payment |
|---|---|
| Summer 2023 | £840 |
| Autumn 2023 | £845 |
| Spring 2024 | £845 |
How to best use PP+ funding
PP+ funding should be used to promote the education (in the widest sense) of the child.
You may wish to consider expenditure which addresses:
- academic achievement and progress
- social, emotional and mental health
- wider achievement, perhaps in an area where the child is talented
- transition to the next Key Stage
- transition to a new education setting
- extra-curricular activities
PP+ for previously looked-after children
Schools also receive PP+ funding for each eligible previously looked-after child on their roll. They are eligible if they were in care to an English or Welsh local authority and then left care because one of the following applied.
They were:
- adopted
- subject to a special guardianship order (SGO)
- subject to a child arrangements order
Schools should record any eligible previously looked-after children on the October census to receive funding from central Government in the following April. The Virtual School has no role in the distribution of PP+ funding for previously looked-after children.
The funding is not a personal budget and should be spent for the benefit of the previously looked-after cohort. Schools should encourage parents and guardians to participate in discussions about how PP+ funding can support their child.
Children who were adopted from state care elsewhere in the world are not eligible for PP+ funding.
Children who were in care and returned to birth parents are not eligible for PP+ funding.
Last updated 14 March 2023