St Thomas More Catholic School Pupil Premium Plan
What is Pupil Premium in light of our values at St Thomas More Catholic School?
Pope Francis June 2019 : Catholic News Agency
“Scripture constantly speaks of God acting on behalf of the poor. He is the one who ‘hears their cry’ and ‘comes to their aid’; he ‘protects’ and ‘defends’ them; he ‘rescues’ and ‘saves’ them... Indeed, the poor will never find God indifferent or silent in the face of their plea.”
He said it is the obligation of the Christian to care for those who are vulnerable, because Christ identifies with those in poverty. Therefore, it is an important part of our Mission at St Thomas More Catholic School.
With this in mind, at St Thomas More School we are committed to the care and success of every pupil in a way that is rooted in the values of the gospel. Where students struggle with the weight of poverty or disadvantage, we harness the PP funding so that through the educational opportunities that we provide, we may support them in an ongoing way.
This support takes the form of planned spending of PP money to ensure that students have every opportunity to flourish in the learning environment at St Thomas More School. So, PP money is used to enable support for individual students through intervention as well as to retain, where possible, a low student teacher ratio to enable bespoke packages with individuals. To this end, the PP spend is both individual and general, always with a strong focus on the impact of the spending.
(Please see the spend document and impact documents)
Who is eligible?
Pupil Premium was introduced in April 2011 and is allocated to students who are in one of the following categories…
- Children who are Looked After (LAC);
- Children who are currently eligible for Free School Meals;
- Children who have received Free School Meals in the last six years (Ever 6 children);
- Children who are within a service family;
- Children adopted from care, or children who have left care under Special Guardianship order since December 2005 (Pupil Premium Plus) - since April 2014.
We encourage therefore all our families who are struggling financially to apply for Free Schools Meals. Please use the link below in order to make an application or feel free to make an appointment at school in order to seek further clarification
www.bedford.gov.uk/education-welfare-service/free-school-meals