Tudor Primary School – Catch-up Premium Strategy 2021-22

Catch up program post COVID 19

Mandated COVID 19 lockdowns and the subsequent disruption to face to face schooling resulted in our pupils having to adapt to home schooling, remote teaching and reduced interaction with their class teacher. Inevitably, this led to many children having gaps in their age related expected knowledge when they returned to school. 

At Tudor Primary School, we have constructed a ‘Catch-up’ plan to ensure that children can recover lost learning time and fill potential gaps in knowledge. This plan focuses on Quality First teaching, staff empowerment through high quality training, precise and targeted planning to fill gaps in pupil learning, informed classroom teaching and precise small group interventions. Supporting the wellbeing of our pupils is also crucial to our considerations. This wellbeing is important to enable children to thrive and be ready to learn.

 Furthermore, using the EEF’s (Educational Endowment Foundation) Teaching and Learning Toolkit which ranks effectiveness of strategies, we know that metacognition has one of the biggest impacts on pupil progress.  The EEF evidences that it has “consistently high levels of impact, with pupils making an average of eight months’ additional progress” each year. This information is utilised within our plan.

What is the ‘Catch-up’ premium funding?

The government has announced funding to support children and young people to catch up on learning lost due to pandemic restrictions. Schools should use this funding for specific activities to enable their pupils to recover from the lack of face to face teaching .Schools have the flexibility to use this funding in the optimal way to meet the needs of their children and their circumstances.

Tudor Primary will receive £32,800 ‘Catch-up’ funding to support interventions designed to close gaps in attainment for this academic year.

How will spending decisions about interventions be made?

Since September, school leaders have been following best practice guidance documents and approaches published by the DfES (Department for Education) and the EEF (Education Endowment Foundation) in order to ensure that additional funding is directed in the most effective way. Approaches taken by the school are driven by our detailed knowledge of children’s current attainment and will draw upon evidence-based strategies and interventions which are proven to have a positive impact on closing gaps.

Tudor Primary takes a ‘tiered approach’ to closing gaps and raising attainment .In addition to high-quality teaching and learning, interventions within the school are timetabled for identified groups of pupils in Reading, Writing and Maths.

The Catch-up programme links closely to the School Improvement Plan and Pupil Premium Strategy. Leaders must be able to account for how money is being used to achieve the goal of ‘Catch-up’.

Quality First Teaching

The curriculum is adapted to focus on the key skills and knowledge that children need in order to access the wider curriculum. Our teachers’ focus is on embedding these key facts for all core subjects whilst still teaching non-core subjects. Units of learning missed though the lockdown period were addressed alongside similar units of learning where the concepts and skills are pertinent for progression of learning.

 All teaching takes into account the children’s current learning needs and planning is tailored accordingly. At the start of the term we concentrate on wellbeing using a detailed Recovery curriculum and a whole school text. Alongside this, formative assessments are undertaken to support teachers’ planning.  Pupils in each year group receive specific targeted supported during the school day from their class teacher which focuses on different skills and knowledge. There is a particular focus on reading.

Interventions

Teaching Assistants (TAs) also support children who are further behind or most at risk of falling behind. These children will be planned for by the teacher who works with TAs to allow for smaller ratios and more targeted intervention using PixL therapies. Early Reading is a priority and so pupils are identified for 1:1 reading and phonics interventions. Intervention records are kept and each group of children below expectations will have an overview in place which details the gaps to be addressed.  This includes Speech and Language programmes to close the gaps for SEND/PP and targeted pupils.  All interventions will be reviewed half termly and during data meetings.

EYFS NELI Programme

The Department for Education is working with the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and other partners to scale up delivery of the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI).NELI is a high-quality, evidence-based, 20-week intervention designed to improve the language skills of reception age pupils. It involves scripted individual and small group language teaching sessions and is delivered by trained school staff. Several EEF trials have found that NELI improves both children’s oral language and early literacy skills.

Health, Fitness and Wellbeing

We believe that it is important for our children to securely acquire, develop and embed key knowledge and skills. This enables them to become good learners who are more able to widen their curriculum knowledge. We recognise that during school closures, restrictions of time, space, facilities and resources have meant that many of our children were not able to engage in physical activities. The provision of daily physical activities is important to redevelop stamina, fitness and a healthy lifestyle.  We ensure that pupils have the opportunity to attend after school clubs run by the Featherstone Sports Partnership, as well as school led activities. We also recognise that many of our pupils will also have developed pastimes and strengths during lockdown which can be accessed and utilised further. These will include hobbies and interests, enhanced digital skills, timetabling and self-study behaviour etc.  Exploring these strengths further will enhance pupils’ ability to reach their full potential and outcomes. We recognise the importance of our children’s well-being and so have introduced school based programmes which are run by the clinical psychologists.

Wider Strategies

Our focus is to ensure that we have 100% attendance for all children. Lockdown has disrupted the routines, experience and expectations of being at school full time.  Our aim is to work alongside families to improve attendance by supporting them to overcome any barriers to good attendance. This is done through various mechanisms including regular attendance meetings with targeted families and other relevant professionals.  As well as recognising the barriers, we also inspire and celebrate good attendance though certificates and prizes throughout the term.

Who will benefit from the funding?

From September, 2021, all pupils have undertaken high-quality assessments in Reading, Writing, Phonics, Spelling and Maths. Through careful analysis of this assessment data, teachers have identified groups of children that will benefit from ‘Catch-up’ support or other interventions in order to enable them to close gaps in understanding and attainment. This includes disadvantaged pupils.

This document is linked to the Pupil Premium Strategy. Many of the barriers are the same.

School Overview