Wellington Primary School
Catch Up Premium 2020 – 2021
In June, the Government announced a £1 billion of funding to support children and young people to catch up. Further guidance has now been released and can be viewed at www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-catch-up-premium. Schools allocations are calculated on a per pupil basis, providing each mainstream school with a total of £80 for each pupil in Reception through to Year 6.
This means Wellington Primary School will be in receipt of £33,760 (422 x £80) this year to help support our pupils.
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 support guide for schools with evidence-based approaches to catch up for all pupils. We have considered this when planning our approach for the use of this funding.
Barriers to getting pupils back on track:
- Loss of learning due to school closure
- Pupil attitudes to learning and resilience and stamina to access learning for longer periods of time
- Changes in behaviour, including anxiety, self-esteem and self confidence
- Pupils not being able to make links to previous learning
- Phonics knowledge and application for pupils in EYFS and KS1
- Foundations of learning in Early Years
At Wellington Primary School, this money will be used in order to provide:
- Curriculum resources and materials that support “catch up” and the mental health of all pupils.
- Additional support staff to develop the outcomes of children who have been identified as needing “catch up” in their learning.
The impact of the expenditure on the educational attainment of pupils at Wellington Primary School will be assessed using:
- Termly ‘Rising Stars’ assessments.
- Ongoing teacher assessment and assessment for learning
- Assessment tools built into online interventions.
Catch-up at Wellington Primary School is:
For all children
- Working through well sequenced, purposeful learning schemes. For example, our English and Mathematics schemes are being adapted to focus on missed objectives and consolidate the basics.
- 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 arithmetic and reading skills relevant to age.
- Additional lesson time on core teaching. Reading, writing and mathematics teaching will require increased teaching time in order to cover missed learning – particularly in the autumn term. In order to keep a broad and balanced curriculum, some subject areas may be taught as blocked days rather than weekly lessons in the autumn term.
- Particular focus on 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. We have purchased ‘Bug Club’ to help support the reading of all pupils at school and at home.
- Assessment of learning and of basic skills to identify major gaps. Teachers will work to identify gaps in learning and adapt teaching accordingly. We undertook baseline assessments in the first part of the autumn term for all children to identify gaps in learning.
- Time spent on mental health, 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. A main focus across school on PSHE and SMSC through mindfulness, nurture sessions, circle time etc. We will provide regular opportunities for pupils to express their feelings and anxieties and to ask questions.
- Additional technology for online interventions. We have purchased iPads to enable a greater number of children to access online interventions. These interventions include Bug Club and Lexia.
For some children
- Additional support and focus on basic core skills. Supported by additional staffing utilising catch up premium – dependent on need as identified through on-going assessment.
- Additional time to practise basic skills. This again will be dependent on the needs of the children in order to re-establish good progress in the essentials (phonics and reading, increasing vocabulary, writing and mathematics) and there will be flexibility on timetables to allow this.