What is the Service Pupil Premium?

The Service Pupil Premium is additional funding provided by the government to state schools, academies and free schools in England which have children from service families in years Reception to 11.

This premium is designed to assist schools in providing additional support for these children and is currently worth £300 per service child meeting the eligibility criteria.

Who is eligible?

Pupils attract the SPP if they meet the following criteria:

•one of their parents is serving in the regular armed forces

•they have been registered as a ‘service child’ in the school census at any point since 2011, see footnote 1

•one of their parents died whilst serving in the armed forces and the pupil receives a pension under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme or the War Pensions Scheme

(Ministry of Defence, 2016)

What is the purpose of the Service Pupil Premium?

Eligible schools receive the SPP to help service children in education to deal with some of the challenges they may face whilst at school, such as parental deployment or family mobility. It is designed for schools to offer mainly pastoral care.

What can schools use the Service Pupil Premium for?

Schools have flexibility over how they use the SPP, though the Ministry of Defence has set out clear guidelines for school’s spending:

 “The funding could be spent on providing a variety of means of support including counselling provision, nurture groups, e-bluey clubs etc….SPP should not be used to subsidise routine school activity (trips, music lessons etc.), however, schools may choose to fund school trips just for service children, to help them enjoy their time at school and build a sense of a wider community and understanding of the role their service parent plays (e.g. with military specific trips) to help them cope with the potential strains of service life.” Ministry of Defence (2016).

How do we spend our allocation?

At Tiger Primary School we understand and appreciate the challenges which our Service children in education face. We look to enable our children to make links within the community and to have quality time to talk to children in a similar situation to themselves, as well as developing a clear understanding of the roles which their service parents play.

We have developed a link with another local school who have a high percentage of service children in education. Our children will have access to their service pupils club which will be frequented by Maidstone Barracks Army Welfare Officer.

The children will also have access to additional pastoral support as and when they need it throughout the course of their time in school.