What is the Pupil Premium?

The pupil premium grant is additional funding for publicly funded schools in England. It’s a school-level grant that gives schools extra resources to help them meet challenges, including those arising from deprivation.

It’s allocated for schools to:

• improve the academic outcomes of disadvantaged pupils of all abilities
• close the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers across the country

Funding criteria

Pupil premium funding is allocated to eligible schools based on the number of:

• pupils who are recorded as eligible for free school meals, or have been recorded as eligible in the past 6 years (referred to as Ever 6 FSM)
• children previously looked after by a local authority or other state care, including children adopted from state care or equivalent from outside England and Wales

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

Pupil premium funding is allocated to local authorities based on the number of:

• looked-after children, supported by the local authority
• pupils who meet any of the eligibility criteria and who attend an independent setting, where the local authority pays full tuition fees

For pupils who are looked-after children, funding should be managed by the local authority’s virtual school head (VSH)  in consultation with the child’s school.

Using the Pupil Premium effectively

School leaders are best placed to decide how to use the pupil premium to improve disadvantaged pupils’ academic attainment. There is a growing body of evidence on how schools can best help disadvantaged pupils make progress. The needs of all pupils should be assessed and the grant used to make maximum impact in the school. Pupil needs will differ and will cost differing amounts to address.

There is no expectation that schools should spend the grant only on eligible pupils, or on a per eligible pupil basis.

Funding rates for the 2024-2025 financial year

This table shows how the pupil premium grant is allocated to schools and local authorities in the 2024 to 2025 financial year, based on per pupil rates.