Children in Care achieve significantly poorer outcomes than those who have not experienced care; in many cases the impact of pre-care and care experience can be a significant barrier to educational achievement. The Department for Education allocates the Pupil Premium Plus (PP+) grant for all children in care of statutory school age to promote educational outcomes and help close the attainment gap. It is the responsibility of the Virtual School Head to determine and be accountable for the distribution of the grant. The grant is not a personal budget for individual children and, given that children and young people in care have differing levels of need at different stages of being in care, does not have to be allocated on a per capita basis. The Virtual School Head may retain some of the grant centrally to fund services that will benefit the full cohort of children in care.
Peterborough Virtual School's PP+ policy references and should be read in conjunction with the following government guidance documents and national advice:
Children Previously in Care
Pupil Premium for permanently placed children (often referred to as Pupil Premium Plus or PP+) was introduced in 2014 in recognition that children who ceased to be looked after by an English or Welsh local authority and are now subject to a Special Guardianship Order (SGO) or a Child Arrangement Order (CAO) or children who have gone on to be adopted (from an English or Welsh local authority or from ‘State care’ outside of England) often require extra support and help in school in view of their early life experiences.
Further PP+ information for this groups of children can be found here