Pupil Premium

Pupil Premium is an allocation of funding given to schools to support specific groups of children who may be vulnerable to possible underachievment.

It is intended to improve the attainment of disadvantaged children, narrowing the gap between them and their classmates or accelerating their progress.

Schools are given a pupil premium for:

• Children who have qualified for free school meals at any point in the past six years. The school receives £1515 per year for each of these children. This support continues for six years even if children are no longer entitled to free school meals (they become Ever FSM).
• Children who have been looked after under local authority care for more than one day. These children are awarded a premium of £2630.
• Children of service families are awarded £350 per year,

Schools can choose how to spend their pupil premium money, as they are best placed to know what would be of most benefit to the children who are eligible e.g.

• Extra one-to-one or small-group support.
• Providing music lessons.
• Funding educational trips and visits.
• Paying for additional help such as speech and language therapy or family therapy.
• Investing in resources that boost children’s learning.

Pupil premium is not a personal budget for individual pupils, and schools do not have to spend pupil premium so that it solely benefits pupils who meet the funding criteria. It can be used:

• to support other pupils with identified needs, such as those who have or have had a social worker, or who act as a carer
• for whole class interventions which will also benefit non-disadvantaged pupils

Free school meals and the Pupil Premium

Free school meals are available to some children according to family income.  It’s important to register for entitlement to free school meals, even if your child has a packed lunch – this is so we can receive additional funding (called the Pupil Premium) which we can use to help your child. 

It is also important that you register for Free School Meals even if your child receives Universal Free School Meals (Years R to 2) as the school will then receive an amount of money that can be used to support your child via the Pupil Premium.

Children are entitled to Free School Meals if their parents, carers or guardians receive any of the following:

• Universal Credit (if your annual net earned income is £7,400 or less, as assessed over up to three of your most recent assessment periods)
• Income Support
• Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• support under Part IV of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• the Guarantee element of State Pension Credit
• Child Tax Credit (if you are not also entitled to Working Tax Credit and your annual gross income is £16,190 or less)
• Working Tax Credit run-on (paid for four weeks after you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit)

Auto-Enrolment from September 2025

From September 2025, children who qualify for free school meals will have their application processed automatically by Central Bedfordshire Council. They do this using information they already hold, such as Council Tax Support and Housing Benefit.

If we believe your child is likely to be eligible, we will:

1. write to you to explain that we think your child may qualify
2. assess your application automatically unless you tell us not to
3. let you and your child’s school know the outcome

From April 2018, the government introduced “transitional protection” for free school meals. This means that if you no longer meet the income criteria, your child can usually continue to receive free school meals until the rollout of Universal Credit is complete. The government has announced that transitional protection will continue until September 2026.

Please speak to someone in the CBC office, call 0300 300 8306.