The government believes that the Pupil Premium, which is funded separately to main school funding, is the best way to address the current underlying inequalities between children eligible for free school meals (FSM) and their peers by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the pupils who need it most.

The Pupil Premium was introduced in April 2011 and is allocated to schools to work with pupils who have been registered for free school meals at any point in the last six years (known as ‘Ever 6 FSM’).

Schools also receive funding for children who are looked after continuously for more than six months, and for children who have been adopted as well as children of service personnel.

MHCHS

Pupil Premium Strategy Report

Click here for the latest Pupil Premium Strategy Report

At MHCHS 24% of students in Years 7-11 are eligible for Pupil Premium funding.

The funding is being spent in the following ways:

Raising Achievement and Attainment

• Investment in Quality Teaching First strategies to ensure maximum learning in the classroom.
• Investment in high quality intervention.
• Use of literacy, reading and comprehension programmes in Inclusion to tackle the students with identified reading age lower than their actual age or other speech and language difficulties.
• Providing high quality support through subject specific Teaching Assistants
• Provision of homework club
• Exam fees for FSM students who have needed to retake are paid.
• Various initiatives to raise engagement and improve Behaviour for Learning.
• Amendments and alterations to the curriculum

Building Social and Cultural Capital

• A wide range of school trips are funded.
• Students on FSM are funded for music lessons as well as having the Musical instrument supplied.

Behaviour Management

• A Mentoring Hub has been set up to ensure that students are able to modify their behaviour and therefore achieve more successful outcomes both academically and in a wider social context.

Summer School 

Over the first week of the summer holidays, a group of year 7 students were invited to attend Mill Hill County High School’s Summer School. The aim of the week was to ease the transition into secondary school, especially after such a turbulent year due to lockdown and periods of remote learning. We were allocated funding of £16,750, which we used to accommodate 54 students. 

The students took part in a range of activities which focused on teamwork, with literacy and numeracy skills embedded. The MHCHS staff lead ice-breaker activities, treasure hunts, library workshops, relay races and graffiti design competitions, just to name a few. In the afternoon, after lunch provided by the school, we focused on wellbeing; students were able to choose from a range of activities including sport, gardening and mindful art.

We were also able to invite external companies in to deliver sessions for the students. The African Activities organisation lead a drumming workshop and The Bigfoot Theatre company performed an interactive play exploring some of the challenges faced in the transition to secondary school.

A huge thank you to everyone who made the week possible!