COVID-19 Catch-Up Premium

Rationale

Nationally, children have experienced unprecedented disruption to their education because of coronavirus. The government has provided £1 billion of funding to support children and young people to catch up. This includes a one off universal £650 million catch-up premium for the 2020 to 2021 academic year. Alongside this universal catch-up premium, the government has provided a £350 million National Tutoring Programme to provide additional support.

As an Academy we have been allocated £110,080 of catch-up premium to support our pupils in 2020-21. We have flexibility about how we spend this additional funding and have referred to evidence-based approaches to ensure its effective use. We are mindful that those pupils from the most vulnerable and disadvantaged backgrounds have been most adversely affected by COVID. We are aware that each of our carefully chosen strategies needs to demonstrate impact so that the funding makes a discernible difference and raises the attainment of all pupils to close the gap created by COVID-19 school closures and isolation. We are using the funding to:

•  Identify those pupils who need specific catch-up support, whilst continuing to adapt teaching and learning (both in school and via remote learning as appropriate) to ensure that all pupils make appropriate progress irrespective of their ‘return to school starting point’.
• Adapt Schemes of Learning to take account of the need for specific catch-up activities and ensure that we can deliver an effective curriculum through our blending learning pages on Firefly.
• Support all pupils by providing excellent teaching that integrates new technologies to support learning and a supportive pastoral system provided by Progress Leaders and Tutors.

Areas benefitting from additional funding, its cost and impact

• Remote learning and online resources
  • Staff training on delivery of effective blended learning
    This has ensured that all pupils have access to high quality online teaching and that online lessons are well sequenced and closely follow the curriculum of each subject. Staff are confident in creating and uploading online learning using Firefly and the online curriculum closely matches the lessons being delivered in school.
  • Online textbooks and subscriptions to e-resources such as GCSE Pod, Kerboodle, Educake, Collins connect.
    This has enabled enable teaching staff to provide opportunities for interleaving of content covered in previous lockdowns and increase low stakes assessment like quizzes to determine prior learning. Teachers have been able to monitor learning progress better through the use online assessment. It has also resulted in improved engagement with remote learning since the first lockdown.
  • Purchase of Bedrock learning
    This online resource provides weekly vocabulary development for Year 7 and 8. Termly reports show that the most improvement is being made by the less able. Boys continue to record higher pre-test scores than girls whilst girls continue to make better progress.
• Computers/IT resources
  • Alongside the government’s commitment to providing devices to disadvantaged pupils we have purchased additional laptops to ensure that all pupils have access to IT resources at home. 249 pupils have been provided with devices. This has enabled the school to provide a robust blended learning strategy.
• Targeted academic support in school
  • Maths 1:1 and small group tuition
    Pupils requiring extra support were identified using the data from internal assessments. A Maths tutor has been employed to provide 1:1 and small group tuition. This is taking place in the Bridge and it was provided for disadvantaged pupils especially during lockdown. By mid-June over 270 tutor hours have been provided to pupils.
  • English 1:1 and small group tuition
    Pupils requiring extra support were identified using the data from internal assessments carried out initially in November 2020. An English tutor has been employed to provide 1:1 and small group tuition since January. This is taking place in the Bridge and the support was extended to vulnerable pupils between January and March 2021. The tutor has also provided Zoom lessons on the topic of Blood Brothers. Between Mar and May after school bespoke sessions were also arranged for Y11 catch-up. By mid-June over 111 tutor hours have been provided to pupils.
  • Temporary additional staffing
    Further capacity has been created within the Senior Leadership Team and Pastoral Team to support pupils returning to school and their well-being. Staffing has been increased temporarily within Maths and English to support these core subject areas. The staffing of the Bridge has also been increased.

• National tutoring programme
  • Use of MyTutor
    90 pupils from Years 7 to 10 were identified by the Maths and English departments based on Remote Learning engagement and the data from the December reports, with an input from the pastoral team. Attendance for the sessions has been good (85%) with 29% of pupils selected either PP or SEN. MyTutor tutors provide a weekly update on pupil progress measured against the topics set by the subject departments.