Covid-19 Catch Up Fund

Holden Clough Community Primary School - Recovery Funding Spending Plan 

Covid-19 ‘Catch-up’

In June, a £1 billion fund for education was announced by the government.  Further guidance has now been released (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 and will not include Nursery numbers, meaning Holden Clough will be in receipt of £30,880 (386 x £80).  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 pupils.

Spending

This money will be used in order to:

• Purchase curriculum resources and materials that support pupils to get 'back on track'
• Pay the top up fee to access the subsidised national tutoring programme for disadvantaged pupils and others who are identified as needing 'catch-up' in their learning
• Fund additional support to develop the outcomes of children who have been identified as needing 'catch-up' in their learning. (See below).

Aims

The broad aims for “catch up” at Holden Clough:

• Attainment outcomes at end of 2020-21 for all year groups will be at least in line with those at the point of lockdown in March. This means that if a child was working at an age-related expectation in a subject in March they are working at least to an age-related expectation in that same subject by the end of the year.
• By the end of the 2021-22-year, attainment outcomes for all year groups will be at least in line with those at the end of the 2019-20 year.

Our Motto “A family of independent life-long learners that reach for the stars” provides the framework for education in our school.

We are committed to providing the highest quality education for all our children regardless of background or barrier to learning in all aspect of school life.

“Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are likely to have been more affected particularly severely by closures and may need more support to return to school and settle back into school life. Whilst all pupils will benefit from the EEF recommendations, it is likely that some forms of support will be particularly beneficial to disadvantaged.” (Covid-19 Support Guide for Schools – June 2020)

Teaching

First quality teaching is the most important lever schools have to improve outcomes for their pupils.

Targeted Academic Support

There is extensive evidence supporting the impact of high-quality one to one or group tuition as a catch-up strategy. Tuition delivered by qualified teachers is likely to have the biggest impact.

Pupil Assessment and Feedback

Assessment information can help teachers determine how to most effectively support their pupils. Every pupil will have been effected differently by Covid-19. Setting aside time to enable teachers to assess pupils’ wellbeing and learning needs is likely to make it easier for teachers and other school staff to provide effective support.

Wider Support

Schools have provided extensive pastoral support to pupils and families during the pandemic. Additional support in the new school year could focus on providing regular and supportive communications with parent, especially to reassure parents that the school is safe and increase attendance and engagement with learning.

Catch Up at Holden Clough

(For all children)

• Working through well sequenced, purposeful learning schemes. For example, our school purchased new phonic scheme ‘First Class at Phonics’ and trained all EYFS and KS1 staff. We are focusing on missed phases and consolidate the basics. In maths, we will utilise the White Rose Catch up Scheme as well as Power Maths as our spine of learning. We have been able to use catch up premium to purchase new resources for catch up.
• 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. Reading, writing and maths 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 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 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.

 (For some children)

• Additional support and focus on basic core skills. Supported by additional after school tutoring, 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) and there will be flexibility on timetables to allow this.

Catch up at Holden Clough IS not:

• Cramming missed learning
• Pressuring children and families into rapid learning
• Teachers time spent assessing and highlighting missed objectives, ticking off assessment points and extra tracking.