In June, a £1 billion fund for education was announced by the government. Further guidance has now been released (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-catch-up-premium) showing that the money is split between a catch-up premium and a national tutoring scheme.
The catch-up premium is funded on a per pupil basis at £80 per pupil. This will be based on the previous year’s census, meaning we are predicting West Green Primary will be in receipt of £16,640 (208 x £80). A second trache of funding will be based on children in receipt of Pupil Premium funding only.
The spending of this money will be down to schools to allocate as they see best. To support schools to make the best use of this funding, the Education Endowment Foundation has published a support guide for schools with evidence-based approaches to catch up for all students.
At West Green, this money will be used in order to provide:
- Additional support in and out of class to develop the outcomes of children who have been identified as needing “catch up” in their learning.
- Curriculum resources and materials that support “catch up” and resilience of pupils.
There are two broad aims for “catch up” at West Green:
- Attainment outcomes at end of 2020-21 for all year groups will be strongly improved from post-lockdown starting points (Autumn 2020).
- The resilience needs of pupils are met and supported by the school.
Catch Up at West Green is
(For all children)
- Working through well sequenced, purposeful learning schemes. For example, our ‘Power of Reading’ teaching methods are being adapted to focus on missed objectives and consolidate the basics. In maths, we utilise the White Rose Hub Maths Scheme, and we have been able to use catch up premium to purchase additional resources to support this.
- Focus on consolidation of basic skills. The core skills which enable successful learning will require increased curriculum time across all year groups. These include: handwriting, spelling of high frequency words, basic sentence punctuation, times tables recall, basic addition & subtraction fact recall and reading skills relevant to age.
- Additional lesson time on core teaching. Where appropriate and in order to meet the needs of their particular class, teachers are free to spend more time on the core subjects in order to facilitate effective catch up. This is normally done by introducing maths or English elements more specifically into the other subjects, such as graph work in geography, or writing in history.
- Particular focus on early reading and phonics. This is always a focus in the school and will continue to be so in order to develop children’s reading ability and vocabulary.
- Assessment of learning and of basic skills to identify major gaps. Teachers will work to identify gaps in learning and adapt teaching accordingly.
- Time spent on resilience, wellbeing and social skills development. This will be at the core of all catch up work as many children will have not been in formal school setting for a number of months. The schools new focus on Growth Mindset will support and channel this.
(For some children)
- Additional support and focus on basic core skills. Supported by clubs utilising catch up premium – dependent on need as identified through ongoing assessment.
- Additional time to practice basic skills. This again will be dependent on need of children in order to re-establish good progress in the essentials (phonics and reading, increasing vocabulary, writing and mathematics).
- Specialised support for speech and language for some children in Reception class through the NELI programme
- Additional outdoor resources for Year 1 to bridge gaps caused by the missed time in Reception.