What is pupil premium data?
Pupil premium eligibility is one of the main and most commonly referred to contextual factors used in assessing school and Local Authority results. It is used to derive the 'Disadvantaged' cohort, which can be reported through Nova reports and appears as a key pupil group in Insight.
Eligibility for pupil premium must be imported into Keypas to be used in this way.
The Department for Education (DfE) defines Pupil Premium as:
“…additional funding for publicly funded schools in England to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils of all abilities and to close the gaps between them and their peers.”
The amount of funding received per pupil depends on the age and circumstances of the pupil and their reason for pupil premium designation.
By far the most prevalent source of pupil premium is designation as a pupil who is eligible for free school meals (FSM), or who has been at any point in the previous 6 years. This designation is a result of parental eligibility for certain types of benefits such as income support or job seekers allowance.
FSM eligibility is indicated on the school census and can start and stop in any census as submitted by schools, but eligibility for pupil premium must be downloaded separately and is available towards the end of the summer term.
Pupil Premium for FSM eligibility is paid at a lower rate for secondary schools than primary schools.
There are other sources of being designated for pupil premium at a higher rate than FSM - which are:
- Identification in the January school census (or alternative provision census) as having left local authority care as a result of adoption, a special guardianship order, a child arrangement order.
- Has been in local authority care for 1 day or more.
- Is recorded as BOTH FSM in the last six years AND as being looked after/being a care leaver.
Pupil premium eligibility is therefore a key indicator in predicting outcomes for pupils, some of which are amongst the most vulnerable.
It is also a key accountability measure with schools required to explain the effectiveness of their use of the funding on their websites and being one of the main pupil groups considered in Performance Tables and by Ofsted inspectors. For this reason, pupil premium reports from Nexus, Nova and Insight are essential to both schools and local authorities.
Where can I download pupil premium data?
Pupil premium is a derived value and is not – directly – submitted by school or other census.
Eligibility is calculated by the DfE based on the October/Autumn school census (as well as other returns) and usually advised to schools and the Local Authority as early as February (2023 release)
NOTE: At the present time Nexus and DfE disadvantaged methodologies are slightly different. DfE have announced that they will allow for pupils who are FSM eligible in the spring census as well as the autumn census in terms of their reporting. Given that FSM eligibility does not end (due to Universal Credit rollout unless specifically requested by a parent) this means that the difference will be pupils who are added as being FSM Eligible between Autumn Census and Spring Census. DfE will include them, but Nexus - currently - will not. This is under investigation as how it will be adapted for. (June 2023)
Local authorities receive a pupil level file from the DfE via the Get Information About Pupils (GIAP) website - which is accessed through DFE Sign-In. Only authorised users are permitted to access GIAP, which includes many other pupil level sets of information.
In order to access Get Information About Pupils you will need to be sponsored by the authorised approver in your Local Authority.
After you have been granted access to GIAP then the file – once published – can be found in the Data Downloads section under the appropriate academic year.
If it does not appear in that list then it will not have been published (checking/watching the Nexus forums will often confirm whether other users have been able to download the file yet or if they have experienced any problems).
Clicking the download link will take you to the pupil premium LA download page. It is important to note that downloads are organised by Financial Year rather than Academic Years.
For clarity see the following table, the same rules extend forward and back to other years (note that despite the cancellation of primary assessments in 2020 and 2021, it is useful for the LA to ensure those years were also loaded to ensure completeness and update cohort analysis)
| Financial Year (Get Information About Pupils) | Academic results to load against |
| 2020-21 | 2020 |
| 2021-22 | 2021 |
| 2022-23 | 2022 |
| 2023-24 | 2023 |
| 2024-25 | 2024 |
| 2025-26 | 2025 |
| 2026-27 | 2026 |
| 2027-28 | 2027 |
- Download the file as a zip file from Get Information About Pupils
- Extract the contents which will include a .csv formatted file.
- Save this .csv file in a location that will be accessible once you start the upload to Nexus. Do not rename the file while extracting it as Nexus will expect a specific filename format (see below).
- Retain the file for future use (see below).
Please note that as pupil level information this file should be considered sensitive information from which certain information about pupils could be derived. The file should be protected accordingly once downloaded.
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