Catch Up Premium Information

Covid-19 ‘Catch up’

In June 2020, 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 and means that Lowe’s Wong Junior should receive £29600 (370 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 students.

Spending:

At Lowe’s Wong Anglican Methodist Junior, this money will be used in order to:

• Provide targeted in school and after school teacher led intervention groups.
• Offer increased places on our upper KS2 maths intervention programme, Third Space.
• 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 staff to develop the outcomes of children who have been identified as needing “catch up” in their learning.
• Increase the provision for one to one and two to one mentoring.

Aims

The broad aims for “catch up” at Lowe’s Wong Junior are:

• 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.
• The mental health needs of pupils that have arisen as a result of the pandemic are met and supported by the school.

Catch Up at Lowe’s Wong Junior is

(For all children)

• Working through well sequenced, purposeful learning schemes. For example, the use of Maths No Problem, supplemented by White Rose are being used and adapted to focus on missed objectives and consolidate the basics. Our Cornerstones based curriculum is being constantly revised to stimulate learning in a fun way and to support further catch up, particularly through cross-curricular English work.  Staff CPD has been completed to implement the Pie Corbett Progression in English in order to further strengthen our sequencing of English teaching.
• 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 but we will ensure that the curriculum continues to be broad and balanced as a the majority of our English work is cross-curricular.
• Particular focus on 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, particularly in lower Key Stage 2 i.e. Years 3 and 4.
• 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 staffing 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.