This site uses cookies. You can read how we use them in our privacy policy.

Tel: 020 8467 2280
Office@bwsgirls.org

Pupil Premium and Free School Meals

What is the Pupil Premium?

The Pupil Premium is a Government initiative that targets extra money at students from deprived backgrounds. Research demonstrates that students from deprived backgrounds underachieve compared to their non‐deprived peers. The premium is provided in order to support these students to enable them to reach their full potential.

The Government has used students entitled to Free School Meals along with other identified vulnerable group data as an indicator of deprivation and have deployed a fixed amount of money to schools per student, over a rolling six year period.

The Pupil Premium is used to provide and implement a range of activities and strategies that ensures that Pupil Premium students receive direct support in order that they can thrive and succeed. The funding is discussed as part of the annual budget-setting process and the priorities are determined by the individual and group needs of students identified under the Pupil Premium.

How to apply for Free School Meals/Pupil Premium

The Pupil Premium was introduced in April 2011 and is money allocated by the Government to schools for children of statutory school age who are eligible under the following criteria:

  • Children who have registered for Free School Meals at any point in the last six years
  • Children who have been looked after continuously for more than six months
  • Children who have been adopted from care on or after 30th December 2006
  • Children whose parents are currently serving in the armed forces

All schools will receive money for every child that falls into one of these categories, and Bullers Wood will in turn use this money to improve facilities and the provision for students.  If you feel your child is eligible under the last three criteria, please inform the school office as soon as possible.

You can register your child for Free School Meals if you receive or are eligible for any of these benefits:

  • Income Support (IS)
  • Income Based Jobseekers Allowance (IBJSA)
  • Income-related employment and support allowance (IRESA)
  • Child Tax Credit, provided they are not entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual income, as assessed by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, that does not exceed £16,190
  • Guaranteed Element of State Pension Credit
  • Where a parent is entitled to Working Tax Credit run-on (the payment someone receives for a further four weeks after they stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit)
  • Support under part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999.
  • Universal Credit with an annual net earned income of no more than £7400 as assessed by earnings.

Registration is confidential and it will not affect any other benefits you are claiming. Students can also register for free school meals if they receive any of these benefits themselves.  If you or your child prefers not to claim the free meals, your child can continue to have a packed lunch. However, it is important that you still register to ensure Bullers Wood School receives the funding.

For further information and to apply for Free School Meals, please access the Bromley Council Website here.

Please register as soon as possible.  Once your application has been processed, the borough will write to you. The borough will also write to the school so we can ensure your child will receive a free school meal.  You may also receive help with the cost of school trips and visits.  If you need any help with registration, please phone the borough on 020 8313 4127 or contact the school office at Bullers Wood School.

Accountability – DFE Statement

The Government believes that head teachers and school leaders should decide how to use the pupil premium. They are held accountable for the decisions they make through:

  • the performance tables which show the performance of disadvantaged pupils compared with their peers
  • the Ofsted inspection framework, under which inspectors focus on the attainment of pupil groups, and in particular those who attract the pupil premium
  • the reports for parents that schools have to publish online

How schools present the information in their online statement is a matter for each school. There is certain information that must be in the report: the school’s pupil premium allocation in respect of the current academic year; details of how it is intended that the allocation will be spent; details of how the previous academic year’s allocation was spent, and the impact of this expenditure on the educational attainment of those pupils at the school, in respect of whom grant funding was allocated. The latest Pupil Premium Report can be found below.