Appleton Thorn Primary School
Catch Premium Strategy
Updated March 2021
Updated September 2021
Summary information | |||||
School | Appleton Thorn Community Primary School | ||||
Academic Year | 2020-21 and onwards | Total Catch-Up Premium | £15,760 (£80 per pupil based on 197) | Number of pupils | 200 |
Rationale Statement for Appleton Thorn’s catch-up strategy | ||
Leaders are committed to ensuring catch up funding is used effectively to make the greatest difference to children’s outcomes after the Covid 19 lockdown. Leaders recognise that inevitably there will have been an impact on all of our pupils regardless of age, academic ability or social background. During the national closures all pupils had access to online learning through Class Dojo and the DB Learning platform. In addition, some of our families who had no access to technology received paper packs of lessons and activities suitable for their age group. Despite the hard work from staff, there were varying levels of engagement from pupils throughout this time and it is important to recognise that our pupils will not have received the same quality of education, consistently and as thoroughly, as if they had been taught in school during this time. Hence, the main aim of the catch up strategy at Appleton Thorn is to raise the attainment of all pupils to close the gap created by the COVID 19 school closures. Since the re-opening in September significant barriers to learning have been identified across the school, as well as in specific year groups, some of which are identified below. The school’s recovery curriculum will ensure all pupils are taught any missed content from previous units of work from the last academic year. However, staff will continue to deliver age related content and make provisions for missed learning naturally through current units of work wherever possible. Primarily, using the catch up funding available, our school will be utilising the expertise of additional teachers to support targeted interventions throughout all year groups. This will be enhanced through additional programs being delivered with planned CPD for staff to ensure a sustained response and making a difference long term. Some money will also be used for developing children’s resilience and well-being so that they can be successful learners’ long term through additional sessions with our own well-being lead teacher. Leaders have considered many factors carefully in deciding how to allocate and spend the Catch-Up Premium. We have also used the government recommended ‘Covid-19 Support Guide for Schools’, published by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), to help identify the best strategies, based on long-term research, that will enable us to achieve the most positive outcomes for our pupils. | ||
Guidance | ||
Children and young people across the country have experienced unprecedented disruption to their education as a result of coronavirus (COVID-19). Those from the most vulnerable and disadvantaged backgrounds will be among those hardest hit. The aggregate impact of lost time in education will be substantial, and the scale of our response must match the scale of the challenge. Schools’ allocations will be calculated on a per pupil basis, providing each mainstream school with a total of £80 for each pupil in Reception through to Year 6. As the catch-up premium has been designed to mitigate the effects of the unique disruption caused by coronavirus (COVID-19), the grant will only be available for the 2020 to 2021 academic year. It will not be added to schools’ baselines in calculating future years’ funding allocations. | ||
Use of Funds | EEF Recommendations | |
Schools should use this funding for specific activities to support their pupils to catch up for lost teaching over the previous months, in line with the guidance on curriculum expectations for the next academic year. Schools have the flexibility to spend their funding in the best way for their cohort and circumstances. To support schools to make the best use of this funding, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has published a coronavirus (COVID-19) support guide for schools with evidence-based approaches to catch up for all students. Schools should use this document to help them direct their additional funding in the most effective way. | The EEF advises the following: Teaching and whole school strategies
Targeted approaches
Wider strategies
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Identified impact of lockdown (Initial observations captured – detail to be completed following Autumn term Assessments and pupil progress meetings) | |
Maths | Across all year groups, specific content has been missed as certain elements are not normally taught until later in the spring term. Teachers during lockdown tried to address this by setting the work on DB Learning Platform and Class Dojo for children to access. However, despite teachers monitoring and responding to work, this work has not been completed by all children and in many cases the work that has been missed is not embedded in their understanding. This is work like handing data in graphs or area and perimeter, where children build upon knowledge year upon year. Teachers provided the Senior Leadership Team with a curriculum deficit report ahead of September to enable advance preparation for the full school returning. In class, staff are analysing gaps in learning, which can lead to problems sequencing the following elements within maths. We are using formal assessments to check all areas of the curriculum and will create test question analysis grids to identify gaps and misconceptions. We are also using data from Google Classroom quizzes to assess prior learning objectives and build up a picture of cohort and individual gaps. All children still have an eagerness to learn in maths lessons and lockdown has not affected their attitudes. Recall of basic skills so far appears to be ok, although Y6 have been working hard to focus on times tables, as the children’s speed had dipped a little. Basic fluency skills will also be monitored and analysed as the children sit arithmetic papers in assessment week. ‘Learning by questions’ utilised through January - March lockdown during remote and face to face teaching and learning. LBQ becomes part of the essential formative assessment cycle in teaching and learning - March to September. |
Writing | Children haven’t necessarily missed ‘units’ of learning in the same way as maths, however they have lost essential practising of writing skills. GAPs specific knowledge has suffered, leading to lack of fluency in writing. Those who have maintained writing throughout lockdown are less affected, however those who evidently didn’t write much have had to work additionally hard on writing stamina and improving their motivation due to the lack of fluency in their ability to write. Due to the nature of our online learning platform (DB and Dojo) children tended to practise their writing skills less, often opting to submit work online or complete tasks electronically. This has therefore led to an overall weakness in handwriting and the ability to present their work in the best way they can (taking pride in their presentation). The build- up and lesson inputs that focus on enhancing and progressing children’s writing skills could not happen in the way that they do in class normally, and therefore some of the precision and detail that we would normally expect to see in the children’s writing is missing. The basics of punctuation are mostly correct; however, it seems that the more technical structures of writing are what the children are needing the most support in e.g. problems with subject-verb agreement, or lack of formal tone or technical vocabulary aimed at a specific genre or audience. On return in March, teachers have noted issues with writing stamina and control. - links to PE and core strength targeted for handwriting improvements. |
Reading | Children accessed reading during lockdown more than any other subject. This is something that was more accessible for families and required less teacher input. However, children are less fluent in their reading and the gap between those children that read widely and those children who don’t is now increasingly wide. The lowest 20% of readers have been disproportionately affected. Reading ages across all ability groups appear to be comparably lower than previous years. Phonics seems to be less affected. Children seemed to have continued to foster a love of reading during lockdown, however it is the social interactions and discussion-based lessons that they have missed. Children need a lot of encouragement to articulate their answers in our Whole Class Reading sessions in a coherent way and can find sharing their ideas with their talk partners quite tricky. Lots of encouragement is given to encourage and develop oracy as we believe that sharing ideas and opinions in reading is what makes a competent and all round lifelong reader. As increasing the vocabulary of our children is high on our priorities, we have hit the ground running with this in September. However, it would appear that children have not challenged themselves with this independently at home when reading alone or with a parent. It is vital that children stop when they come across an unknown word so that it can be explored and absorbed. This therefore builds their vocabulary knowledge to utilise in further learning and reading. We are continuing to make vocabulary a primary focus within all subjects and our previous work with ‘Word Power’ has been relaunched with parents. Children will also need to be carefully guided to ensure they are selecting language rich and challenging texts for their reading ability, as when at home children could have fallen into the trap of only reading the same author or books that they know they can easily read. It is our job now to support children with making these choices, as well as looking at the particular gaps in reading skills. We are renovating our school library as a matter of urgency to revitalise children’s knowledge of authors and to enable them to access alternative books as soon as we are able to share resources across bubbles again. Library is now renovated, a rota using the recommended quarantine time for paper has been drawn up. Pupils had a higher amount of ebooks available to them during this lockdown. Some families were given packs of books to keep children engaged in reading. Additional Books purchased - enjoyment of reading focus. |
Non-core | There are significant gaps in knowledge – whole units of work have not been taught meaning that children are less able to access pre-requisite knowledge when learning something new and they are less likely to make connections between concepts and themes throughout the curriculum. Children have also missed out on and continue to miss out on some of the wider curriculum experiences e.g. trips, visitors and powerful enrichment opportunities. Autumn Term bookings are being made to enrich our curriculum experiences, such a visiting artist and musicians into school |
Social interaction and emotional wellbeing | Regular routines were de-established for some children during lockdown and whilst alternative induction and transition arrangements were implemented during the summer term, this has needed to be a significant focus as part of our recovery plan, to support children with their social, emotional and behavioural needs. Opportunities have also been introduced to allow pupils and parents to articulate their experience and feeling towards lockdown and school closure and subsequent return to school. Our parents were invited to complete ‘parent to teacher transition forms’ through Google Forms to communicate any concerns effectively, as well as to share in any successes over the lockdown period. We have consciously planned to combine our social and emotional learning with our academic curriculum. Families continue to be affected by COVID19 emotionally and financially, working patterns and arrangements have changed and this is impacting on some children emotionally. Our Wellbeing practitioner worked with several children and family members during the lockdown period of January to March 2021. Pupils engaged with online assemblies, bringing the classes together. Teachers united in a voice using Dojo to establish an ‘in it together’ ethos, this is continuing now all children have returned to school. |
Planned expenditure – (The headings below are grouped into the categories outlined in the Education Endowment Foundation’s coronavirus support guide for schools) | ||||
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Desired outcome | Chosen approach and anticipated cost | Evaluation/Impact | Staff lead | Review date |
High Quality Teaching for All All children make at least good progress from their starting points. |
| Autumn Term Assessments demonstrated that from Autumn 2019 to Autumn 2020, pupils made good progress across English and Maths. High end of Ks2 outcomes in reading, writing and maths 2021 | ZJ | Termly PPM |
Effective diagnostic assessment Teachers have a very clear understanding of what gaps in learning remain and use this to inform assessments of learning that are aligned with standardised norms, giving a greater degree in confidence and accuracy of assessments. |
(£8144) | Phonics Tracker used in the Autumn Term 34% pupils require intensive support in order to meet the standard by the end of year 1. LbQ has demonstrated that retrieval knowledge has remained good. Inference has improved for some and will remain a focus. | ZJ/JR | July 2021 |
Supporting Remote learning All children can access high quality remote learning that closely matches the curriculum offer within school. |
(£792) | Parent feedback has shown that our remote learning offer was overwhelmingly successful. Pupils found the platform of Bitmoji fun and easy to use. Parent Feedback. Feedback from families indicated that the range of activities suited the pupils' learning styles well. Kami was a great hit, once families were able to navigate the functions. This reduced the need to print at home. Kami free trial completed and 2021-22 purchased. | ZJ/CB | Ongoing |
Focussing on Professional Development Staff feel confident and empowered to deliver high quality teaching and learning in the classroom and remotely, whilst taking into account their own wellbeing and circumstances. | CPD which focussed upon:
(£1500) | Staff training throughout Autumn term completed to support GC, Video lessons and managing anxiety during COVID-19. Video tutorials were given to all staff for CPD inorder to use Jamboard during remote teaching and learning. Additional Training Autumn 2021: Team Teach Pathways to writing | ZJ | July 2021 |
Total budgeted cost | £ 10,436 | |||
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Desired outcome | Chosen action/approach | Impact (once reviewed) | Staff lead | Review date |
High quality 1-to-1 and small group tuition Identified children will have significantly increased rates of progress in identified areas where there are arrears in learning. |
(£8000)
| Class action plans have identified pupils who received additional intervention throughout Autumn and spring terms; either face to face or 1:1 remotely utilising TAs. | CF/ LF / JG Staff Involved - include HLTAs and Teachers HS, JC | June 2021 |
Teaching Assistants and targeted support All children make at least good progress from their starting points with the impact of targeted intervention evident. |
Additional hours (£1000) | Additional Chromebooks made this possible during lockdown. Continued 1:1 intervention both face to face and virtual when required continued - June 2021 | CF/ LF / JG Staff Involved - TK, AS, NW, RW | June 2021 |
Planning for Pupils with SEND Ambition for all pupils is high and support is in place for pupils with SEND within the classroom and remotely |
| SALT programmes continued during autumn term and Spring lockdown. LSAs delivered this face to face or via Google Meet. Early boost purchase postponed to summer 1 to access the training. | CF | June 2021 |
Total budgeted cost | £9000 | |||
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Desired outcome | Chosen action/approach | Impact (once reviewed) | Staff lead | Review date |
Supporting pupils’ social, emotional and behavioural needs Children are happy, confident, resilient and emotionally equipped to access the curriculum. |
(Link to Sports Premium/Pupil Premium Spend) | Increased hours for LT as the register of pupils and families needing support sessions and phone calls increased. Increased through sports premium spent (Healthy hearts and Healthy Minds) Full curriculum continued including Forest School activities for children both at home and at school. Google Meets were live with pupils in the class. Some group google meets helped to bring children together. | ZJ | Termly |
Communicating with and supporting parents and carers whilst sustaining engagement Children will have greater opportunities to access learning at home. Home-learning opportunities will not always require parents to engage with the activities, affording the children greater independence and increasing the likelihood that parents can sustain home-learning. |
(£1500) | By the End of September Bitmoji Classroom was used daily in all classrooms as a gateway to our DB learning platform. This ensured the children were familiar with navigating to their learning throughout the Autumn Term. Most older children were able to access this independently during the Spring Term lockdown. Google Classroom was used for homework through the Autumn Term, again helping children to become familiar before January. | ZJ/CB | June 21 June 21 |
Access to technology Teachers have laptops that are equipped with webcams and allow the teachers to access school-based resources from home. Teachers facilitate effective home-learning with increased capacity to share resources and communicate learning to children. |
(£10,550)
| Visialisers were installed and teachers and TAs trained at the beginning of September. These were utilised in classrooms straight away. Further Google Drive training completed with TAs and LSAs. Example classrooms set up by HT for staff to begin to use through Autumn Term. Families become fluent in the use of Google Classroom - some tweaks to the guidance through parent feedback in the autumn term supported the success of this. Every DFE device made available to ATP was ordered by ZJ (4 ipads and 2 Chromebooks). Some loaned out to families with a loan agreement. All returned March 2021. | ZJ/CB | Completed |
Total budgeted cost | £12,050 | |||
Any Amount of Catch up not yet Awarded by the DFE will be used to target support and intervention once identified | £6000? | |||
Cost paid through COVID Catch-Up | £15,144 | |||
Cost paid through charitable donations | £5,000 | |||
Cost paid through school budget | £2792.00 10,550 (DFC) | |||
TOTAL SPEND | £29,486 | |||
N.B 2021-22 Recovery Premium spending plan will be incorporated into the school’s Pupil Premium Plan, advised to be completed and published by December 2021