Covid-19 ‘Catch up’

In June 2020, a £1 billion fund for education was announced by the government.  Further guidance was later 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 Tickhill Estfeld will be in receipt of £17,520 (219 x £80).  The spending of this money was left to schools to allocate in the best manner for their pupils. To support schools to make the best use of this funding, the Education Endowment Foundation published a support guide for schools with evidence-based approaches to catch up for all students.

Spending:

At Tickhill Estfeld Primary School, this money is being used to:

• Purchase curriculum resources and materials that support pupils to access the highest quality curriculum. These include quality reading books, subscriptions to educational websites and maths equipment.
• Pay the top up fee to access the subsidised National Tutoring Programme for disadvantaged pupils and others who are identified as needing additional support in their learning.
• Fund staff training to ensure that all teaching is of a high standard.

Aims:

The broad aims for “catch up” at Tickhill Estfeld:

• 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 Tickhill Estfeld Primary School is

(For all children)

• Working through well sequenced, purposeful learning sequences. For example, our school-created writing schemes are being adapted to focus on missed objectives and consolidate the basics. In maths, we will utilise the White Rose curriculum as our spine of learning and we have been able to use catch up premium to purchase Classroom Secrets Kids to supplement 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.
• 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.  We have purchased the NFER tests to help with this.
• Time spent on mental health, wellbeing and social skills development. This will be at the core of all work as many children will have not been in formal school setting for a number of months.  The school has purchased Jigsaw PSHE scheme to help with the delivery of this.

 (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.

Catch up at Tickhill Estfeld Primary School IS NOT:

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

For further information on how the 'Catch Up' premium is being allocated, please see the detailed document below.