Pupil Premium funding from the central government is additional to the formula funding received by Wadham School. This additional funding is allocated to schools to work with students who have been registered as being entitled to free school meals at any point during the previous 6 years. Also entitled are the children of service personnel and students who have been looked after for a continuous period of more than 6 months. These groups of students attract different rates of funding.

Evidence suggests that students from these backgrounds are more likely to underachieve than other students, and as a result, the Government allocates funding so that schools can target this underachievement and put personalised strategies in place to raise attainment and enable these students to achieve at least the same level as students, not from a disadvantaged background.

Wider aims of the Pupil Premium funding include:

• To increase social mobility
• To enable students from disadvantaged backgrounds to better access further education
• To reduce the attainment gap between the highest and lowest achieving students, both locally and nationally.