Current
Our Pupil Premium Strategy Plan for the academic year 2025-26 (below) can also be downloaded here.
Our review of outcomes from 2024-25 may be viewed here.
Pupil premium strategy statement
This statement details our school’s use of pupil premium (for the 2024 to 2025 academic year) funding to help improve the attainment of our disadvantaged pupils.
It outlines our pupil premium strategy, how we intend to spend the funding in this academic year and the effect that last year’s spending of pupil premium had within our school.
School overview
| Detail | Data |
| School | Ormiston Sudbury Academy |
| Number of pupils in school | 715 |
| Proportion (%) of pupil premium eligible pupils | 37% |
| Academic year/years that our current pupil premium strategy plan covers (3 year plans are recommended) | 2025-2026 2026-2027 2027-2028 |
| Date this statement was published | December 2025 |
| Date on which it will be reviewed | November 2026 |
| Statement authorised by | Mrs S Morris |
| Pupil premium lead | Mr D Howkins |
| Governor / Trustee lead | Mr K O’Connell |
Funding overview
| Detail | Amount |
| Pupil premium funding allocation this academic year | £249,150.00 |
| Recovery premium funding allocation this academic year | |
| Pupil premium funding carried forward from previous years (enter £0 if not applicable) | £0 |
| Total budget for this academic year | £249,150.00 |
Statement of intent
At Ormiston Sudbury Academy, we are ambitious for all our students. We believe that a great education is a right for all students. Those students who are disadvantaged are those who most need the opportunities that a well-rounded, well delivered curriculum provides.
We acknowledge that there may be barriers that may affect achievement and use Pupil Premium funding alongside the latest research (for example via Education Endowment Fund) to provide personalised support to address these (see below).
Quality First teaching is at the heart of our strategy. The high-quality implementation of a carefully constructed curriculum will always remain our key priority: ensuring every student makes progress throughout the curriculum in every lesson. Our investment in pastoral care is designed to ensure that students attend well and are able to get the most out of every school day.
Through a combination of first quality teaching, targeted interventions and additional support we aim for our Pupil Premium students to make progress better than other students nationally.
At Ormiston Sudbury Academy, our ultimate objectives for our disadvantaged pupils are to:
- Raise the academic attainment of all students.
- Diminish the progress gap between disadvantaged students and their peers.
- Promote and develop positive behaviours for learning and reduce the risk of suspension.
- Promote well-being through our health and well-being offer.
Develop character providing enriched opportunities for cultural capital.
Challenges
This details the key challenges to achievement that we have identified among our disadvantaged pupils.
| Challenge number | Detail of challenge |
| 1 | Ensuring all disadvantaged students have the core knowledge and skills they need to achieve the outcomes they need to progress through the curriculum and onto their next stages of education |
| 2 | Improving attendance – Our attendance data over the last 2 years indicates that the attendance of disadvantaged pupils has been lower than non-disadvantaged pupils. |
| 3 | Access to Tuition/Materials to accelerate progress – Gap in attainment already present in Yr7 or persisting at Key Stage 4 |
| 4 | Enhancing learning opportunities and Cultural Capital |
| 5 | Access to a healthy meal – Observations, discussions with families and students have revealed that disadvantaged pupils in our Academy do not have the same access to healthy meals, especially breakfast. This reduces pupils’ ability to concentrate and access learning. |
| 6 | Improving wellbeing, behaviour and supporting self-regulation, reducing the days lost to suspension. |
Intended outcomes
This explains the outcomes we are aiming for by the end of our current strategy plan, and how we will measure whether they have been achieved.
| Intended outcome | Success criteria |
| “Good teaching is the most important lever schools have to improve outcomes for disadvantaged pupils.” EEF guide to the Pupil Premium. | Gaps that exist due to absence, disrupted years of education are not impacting on students abilities to make progress. Students to make strong progress through the curriculum at OSA, culminating in Disadvantaged students continuing to make greater progress than other disadvantaged students nationally. The internal gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students is reduced |
| Improve reading comprehension, vocabulary and other literacy skills. | Successful implementation of Read Aloud time. Implement reading age tests 3 times a year to successfully monitor and track reading across both key stages. Educate parents about how to support reading at home. Publish reading ages to parents. Develop a whole school approach to support reading and writing. Test scores (in both reading and writing) to show a reduction in the attainment gap. |
| Improve engagement and behaviour for learning for PPG eligible students. | PP parents are aware that they have access to financial support to assist with purchasing equipment and resources. Tutor equipment checks to show that PP learners are equipped for the academy day in line with non-PP learners. Teaching staff are quick to liaise with PP leads to ensure that any lack of equipment is quickly resolved. Staff are aware of difficulties that may impact PP learners and have plans in place to support these. PP student suspension data is equal to or lower than that of non-disadvantaged students and lower than national. |
| Narrow the attendance gap between PPG eligible students and cohort. | Improved overall attendance for disadvantaged students Reduced persistent absence for disadvantaged students. Improved participation in extended learning opportunities. |
| Enable learning opportunities and enhance Cultural Capital. | Prioritised places are available on trips for PP learners to ensure fair access. Monitoring of extracurricular activity attendance to enable attendance of PP students. Activity leads are aware of the need to promote PP attendance and promote/invite/prioritise PP learners. |
| Access to a healthy diet which impacts upon general well-being. | FSM provision in place. Breakfast Club provision. Purchase of ingredients for Food and Nutrition lessons. |
Activity in this academic year
This details how we intend to spend our pupil premium (and recovery premium funding) this academic year to address the challenges listed above.
Teaching
Budgeted cost: £109,000
| Activity | Evidence that supports this approach | Challenge number(s) addressed |
| CPD to continue to focus on Quality First Teaching. | Supporting high quality teaching is pivotal in improving children’s outcomes. Indeed, research tells us that high quality teaching can narrow the disadvantage gap CPD at Ormiston Sudbury Academy is focussed on the areas we know will have the biggest impact on challenges our cohort face in their learning | 1 |
| Use of HTLA/TA support and recruitment of additional support for high needs students | Large body of work continuing based on EEF work around effective deployment of Teaching Assistants. Employment of an HLTA to ensure that LPA students are stretched and challenged within the academy curriculum and that the Progress 8 score for this group is in line with or exceeding the national average. Thorough and robust in-class and Faculty monitoring and tracking of the impact of interventions. | 1,3 |
| CPD on Reading Aloud and Writing Strategy with follow up sessions and support | ‘Good teaching is the most important lever schools have to improve outcomes for disadvantaged pupils’ EEF Guide to Pupil Premium. Disadvantage in early secondary school (2020) Will Cook (Manchester Metropolitan University) Bart Shaw (The Centre for Education and Youth) Stephen Morris (Manchester Metropolitan University) December 2020 ‘Reading enjoyment has been reported as more important for children’s educational success than their family’s socio-economic status’ (OECD, 2002) | 1 |
| CPD to focus on the Therapeutic approach to behaviour management | Initiate and embed and Therapeutic approach to behaviour management as part of a graduated approach to the behaviour curriculum. Students are targeted after their PASS assessment to develop social emotional strategies relating to resilience and behavioural traits. | 1,2,6 |
| Projected Spend |
Targeted academic support
Budgeted cost: £60,000
| Activity | Evidence that supports this approach | Challenge number(s) addressed |
| 1:1 Online Tutoring | ‘Delivering online tuition can be an effective way to support the learning of disadvantaged pupils’ – Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). ‘Evidence consistently shows the positive impact that targeted academic support can have’. EEF Guide to Pupil Premium. | 3 |
| Small group tuition | Small group tuition teaching strategy from the EEF teacher toolkit. “The average impact of the small group tuition is four additional months’ progress, on average, over the course of a year. | 1,3 |
| HPA Scholar Programme | Programme focussed on KS3 Scholar (HPA) students using Brilliant Club. Research using data from the Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT) has shown that The Scholars Programme also has a positive impact on GCSE attainment. Students who did The Scholars Programme in Year 8 or 9 are more likely to achieve a 9-5 in maths and English than students who scored similarly at Key Stage 2. Small group tuition | EEF | 1,3,4 |
| Targeted reading interventions | ‘Focus on developing pupils’ vocabulary, as vocabulary knowledge is a predictor of achievement and is often related to socio-economic status’ Dixons Kings Academy’ EEF Guide to Pupil Premium. Disadvantage in early secondary school (2020) Will Cook (Manchester Metropolitan University) Bart Shaw (The Centre for Education and Youth) Stephen Morris (Manchester Metropolitan University) December | 1,2,3,6 |
| Projected Spend |
Wider strategies
Budgeted cost: £ 75,000
| Activity | Evidence that supports this approach | Challenge number(s) addressed |
| Removing barriers to learning | Student support for materials (Creative subjects), literacy materials, and access to revision guides. Including access to school (uniform etc). Support for trips and visits. Supporting students to access the additional aspects of learning. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports/digital https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/early-years-toolkit/parental-engagement?utm_source=/education-evidence/early-years-toolkit/parental-engagement&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=site_searchh&search_term | 1,4,6 |
| Additional Attendance interventions including EWO | ‘Interventions may well be one part of an effective Pupil Premium Strategy, they are likely to be most effective when deployed alongside efforts to attend to wider barriers to learning, such as attendance and behaviour.’ https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/early-years-toolkit/parental-engagement?utm_source=/education-evidence/early-years-toolkit/parental-engagement&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=site_searchh&search_term https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-improve-school-attendance | 2 |
| Peri Music lessons | Enable learning opportunities that reduce the barriers and enable opportunities for KS4 options | 4 |
| Behaviour support through a Behaviour Intervention Co-ordinator | Continued investment in a behaviour co-ordinator, offering support to staff and students to increase the opportunities for learning and prevent/lower the risk of suspension. Improving Behaviour in Schools | EEF | 6 |
| Emotional wellbeing support through Counsellor, Wellbeing Suite – Staff time, training & resources | Continued investment in a counsellor; internal mental health counselling provision and offering and training more staff to therefore increase the opportunities for counselling and mentoring to take place. Further development of increased suitable specific venues for counselling to take place. ‘Social. Emotional and mental health (SEMH) was consistently raised […] as an issue that was disproportionately impacting on disadvantaged pupils’ Addressing Educational Disadvantage in Schools and Colleges M Rowland (ed) | 2,6 |
| Other Support: Transport support, Breakfast club, AP, Data Management, Finance Management, Technology | Tracking and monitoring progress to implement interventions effectively. Removing barriers to participation increases attendance. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/news/new-partnership-to-test-the-impact-of-different-cultural-learning-strategie?utm_source=/news/new-partnership-to-test-the-impact-of-different-cultural-learning-strategie&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=site_search&search_term=cultural%20cap | 5,2,4 |
| Projected Spend |
Total budgeted cost: £244,000
This details the impact that our pupil premium activity had on pupils in the 2024 to 2025 academic year.
| Aim | Success criteria |
| Improve outcomes for all Pupil Premium Grant (PPG) students to bring attainment in line with the expected levels of progress. | Remains a focus in 2024-25 – Gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils reduced to -0.13 A8 (v -0.19 National). Rigorous testing process in place. Evident in increased knowledge of key skills in numeracy shown through low stakes in-class assessments, key skills starters, formal regular assessments and public examinations. |
| Improve engagement and behaviour for learning for PPG eligible students. | Partially achieved – PP parents accessed financial support to assist with purchasing equipment and resources. Teaching staff are quick to liaise with PP leads to ensure that any lack of equipment is quickly resolved. Staff are aware of difficulties that may impact PP learners and have plans in place to support these. Improving behaviour of PP students remains a clear focus for 2025-26 |
| Narrow the attendance gap between PPG eligible students and cohort. | It remains a clear focus for 2025-26. |
| Enable learning opportunities and enhance Cultural Capital. | Achieved but remains a priority for the academy. Students both in the academy and when on remote learning have engaged in a wider breadth of contextual knowledge through the curriculum as seen in redesigned Schemes of Learning and resources. Increased attendance of PP students on trips and academy production. |
| Access to a healthy diet which impacts upon general well-being. | Achieved but remains a priority for the academy. FSM provision in place. Breakfast Club provision. Purchase of ingredients for Food and Nutrition lessons has enabled access and attainment at KS4 |
Externally provided programmes
| Programme | Provider |
| MyTutor 1:1 | MyTutor |