What is Pupil Premium?

The pupil premium is additional funding provided by the UK Government to help schools improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged children. Schools receive Pupil Premium funding for pupils who meet certain eligibility criteria, including pupils who:

• are eligible for targeted free school meals, or who have been eligible for free school meals during the previous six years (known as Ever6)
• have previously been looked after by a local authority or other state care, including some children who have been adopted or left care under a special guardianship or child arrangements order. 

Separate Service Pupil Premium funding is also provided for eligible children from Armed Forces families.

Free School Meals & Pupil Premium

From the start of the 2026/27 academic year, eligibility for free school meals has been expanded to include all children from households receiving Universal Credit. There are now two categories of benefits-related free school meals:

• Targeted Free School Meals: These continue to be based on the existing eligibility criteria. Pupils in this category also attract Pupil Premium funding for their school.
• Expanded Free School Meals: These are available to pupils from households receiving Universal Credit who do not meet the criteria for Targeted Free School Meals. These pupils are entitled to a free school meal but do not attract Pupil Premium funding through this entitlement.

Pupils who qualified for free school meals before the September 2026 changes will continue to be included within the Ever 6 Pupil Premium arrangements, where applicable.

How do we use the funding?

Pupil Premium funding is allocated to the school rather than to individual pupils. It is therefore not a personal budget that must be spent solely on the pupil who attracts the funding. Schools have the freedom to spend this funding in a way they think will best support the raising of attainment for the most vulnerable pupils and close the gap between them and their peers. Accompanying this freedom is the responsibility to report on barriers, allocation of monies to overcome these barriers, spending and rate of impact. We work to a three-year strategy for our funding:

Download Kennet School's three-year strategy 2025-2028 >>>

The information reports below are against our 2021-2024 three-year strategy, detailing how we've spent the funding over the last few years and what we are doing with it over this current year:

Pupil Premium Strategy Information Report 2023/24 (Year 3) >>>
Pupil Premium Strategy Information Report 2022/23 (Year 2) >>>
Pupil Premium Strategy Information Report 2021/22 (Year 1) >>>