When does the fund annual year start?
School funding, including the Service Pupil Premium, follows the financial year (i.e. April to March) rather than the academic year (i.e. September to July).
- If a child is starting school in September but missing the January census how does the school claim for reception year?
- as above but for Year 7 secondary
- as above but for in term admissions
Schools are allocated Service Pupil Premium funding for every eligible pupil who is on the school roll at the time of the January school census. So if a school records having 10 Service children on roll in the January 2017 school census, it will be allocated £3000 of Service Pupil Premium funding for those pupils, which will be paid to the school from April 2017 onwards.
If a Service child starts school in September 2017 (in either reception or year 7), the school will record them as a Service child in the January 2018 census and will start to receive Service Pupil Premium funding for that child from April 2018 onwards. Similarly, if a Service child moves school in-year after the January school census, they will not attract Service Pupil Premium funding to the new school they are attending until the April after the next January school census.
This means that there will be a gap between a Service child starting at a school and the point at which the school receives Service Pupil Premium funding for that child. However, there is nothing to prevent schools from providing support to their Service children from the point at which the child starts at the school, before they formally attract Service Pupil Premium funding to the school.
It should be noted that because the funding is paid to schools rather than being attached to individual children, schools will continue to receive Service Pupil Premium payments for children who were on roll at the time of the January school census but who subsequently leave the school (e.g. through reaching the end of year 6 or year 11, or by making an in year move to another school). This may enable schools to redirect any unspent Service Pupil Premium funding, which they were allocated for pupils who are no longer at the school, towards those pupils who have just joined but are not yet formally attracting Service Pupil Premium funding.