Catch-Up Funding

Narrowing the Gap - Including allocation of DfE catch-up funding

The government has announced £1 billion of funding to support children and young people to catch up.

Schools’ allocations are calculated on a per pupil basis, providing each mainstream school with a total of £80 for each pupil in years reception through to 6. Schools have to use this funding for specific activities to support their pupils to catch up for lost teaching over the previous months. Schools have the flexibility to spend their funding in the best way for their cohort and circumstances. To support us 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 pupils. We have considered this when planning our approach for the use of this funding.

The barriers we need to address to help pupils catch up

  • Ensure pupils are in school every day to learn.
  • Supporting pupils emotional wellbeing.
  • Supporting pupils re-establish behaviours for learning.
  • Re-engaging pupils in the curriculum and learning.
  • Re-establish positive relationships.
  • No device to access home-school learning.
  • Expected progress not made due to lockdown, including:
  • Pupils not at appropriate chronological age in English and Maths.
  • Missed daily phonic teaching in Early Years and Key Stage 1 – impacting on early reading and writing skills and confidence.
  • Delayed progress in reading skills, fluency and comprehension.
  • Gaps in Mathematical knowledge and understanding.

 

What we plan to do (CF - Catch-Up Funding used)

  • Monitor and address pupil attendance and absence. (Pupil Premium funding)
  • Providing emotional support / intervention for identified pupils – building resilience and confidence - within school hours and after school. (CF)
  • Provide a device for home use to support home-school learning where identified. (CF)
  • Establish Microsoft Teams Classrooms early on for homework and home-school learning in the event of self-isolation / lockdown. (CF)
  • Develop inclusive classrooms in order to engage and support all pupils including SEND. Professional development provided to staff from Education Psychologist. (CF)
  • Professional development for all staff (Reception to Year 6) linked explicitly to the teaching of phonics, spelling and accelerated progress. (CF)
  • Daily phonics taught in Year 2 (as well as Early Years and Year 1); additional reading in Year 3
  • Partnership work with Yorkshire Endeavour English Hub – focus on phonics teaching, new scheme and resources and early reading.
  • Purchasing of more decodable reading books to support reading development including reading at home. (CF)
  • Regular 1 to 1 reading within school for all pupils; more regular opportunities for identified pupils.
  • Key Stage 2 pupils to have access to ‘Sumdog Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling’ online to support and accelerate progress in writing mechanics both at school and home. (CF)
  • Targeted English and Maths support through dedicated curriculum time.
  • Additional teaching assistant in Nursery to support transition into school and learning activities. (CF)
  • Opportunities for regular retrieval of knowledge and skills linked to prior learning – supporting links with new learning.
  • ‘Catch up’ provision after school for identified pupils – this will continue across the year and be on an identified needs basis. Provision may include 1 to 1 tuition and / or small group work. (CF)

 

How we will check that our plan is making a difference:

  • Establishing baselines in learning.
  • Pupil progress meetings / discussions with class teachers and TAs.
  • Regular monitoring of teaching and learning and pupils' work.
  • Talking to pupils.
  • Tracking of pupil progress data.
  • Progress / outcomes from interventions.