Low-income families may be entitled to a benefit known as Free School Meals (FSM). You can apply for free school meals if you receive:

• Income Support
• Income Based Jobseekers Allowance
• Income Related Employment and Support Allowance
• Child Tax Credit with an annual income of less than £16,190, provided they are not receiving Working Tax Credit
• The ‘Guaranteed’ element of the State Pension Credit
• Support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 (you will need to apply directly to the school not Bradford Council)
• Working Tax Credit run-on (paid for 4 weeks after you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit)
• Universal Credit

If you wish to apply, please click here to access the online form on Bradford Council’s website.

All children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 get free school meals, but if you receive one of the benefits from the list above you may also get help with:

• the cost of residential school trips (speak to your school about this)
• travel costs to school
• school uniform costs (speak to your school about this)
• council run music lessons at school

Registering for free school meals could raise an extra £1,320 for your child’s school, to fund valuable support like extra tuition, additional teaching staff or after-school activities. This additional money is available from central government for every child whose parent is receiving one of the welfare benefits listed in the form. It is therefore important to sign up for free school meals, even if your child is in Reception, Year 1 or Year 2, so that your child’s school receives as much funding as possible.

The Government does not dictate how schools should spend the pupil premium, however Bowling Park Primary will ensure that provision is made which secures teaching and learning opportunities that meet the needs of all pupil premium pupils.

We use Pupil Premium funding to tackle the academic gap between Pupil Premium and non-Pupil Premium children, as well as to support the social and emotional development of Pupil Premium children. 

We run tailored interventions to support Pupil Premium children with a variety of additional needs, for instance SEND children and New to English. This also includes catch up sessions, for example Pixl in Year 6.  Further and more in depth support is provided by a specialist Speech and Language Therapist and Education Physiologist, who work with specific children in school. 

Our funding helps to provide training and support for staff in school. The leadership team, including the SENDCo and Lead Practitioners, help to guide staff so that they can support Pupil Premium children fully. 

At Bowling Park, we place a big emphasis on the importance of experiences and enrichment. This is true of all our children, including Pupil Premium children. We ensure that our curriculum is diverse and exciting so that children can learn and develop in an engaging environment.

Our Pupil Premium children feel supported and safe in school. Opportunities, experiences and exciting activities are plentiful meaning that Pupil Premium children's experience of school is the same as all other children. 

Pupil Premium children at Bowling Park make good progress and achieve well. In many cases, Pupil Premium children's progress exceeds that of non-Pupil Premium children. This bucks the national trend, which shows that Pupil Premium children often make slower progress than non-Pupil Premium children across the country. 

This means that we are diminishing the gap between Pupil Premium and non-Pupil Premium children.