Pupil premium and catch up premium

The government offers funding to tackle inequalities between children on free school meals and their peers called pupil premium.

Pupil premium funding is allocated to a school based on the number of students who are or have been in receipt of free school meals or who are children looked after by a local authority or those children whose parents are in the armed forces. To find out more click here.

School overview

Metric	Data
School name	Easington Academy
Pupils in school	761
Proportion of disadvantaged pupils	32%
Pupil premium allocation this academic year	£238951
Academic year or years covered by statement	2020-2021
Publish date	October 2020
Review date	October 2021

Disadvantaged pupil performance overview for last academic year (2019-2020)

Progress 8	+0.25
Ebacc entry	3%
Attainment 8	44.39
Percentage of Grade 5+ in English and maths	34.78%

Strategy aims for disadvantaged pupils

Aim	Target	Target date
Progress 8	Disadvantaged students P8 matches that of national non-disadvantaged students	September 21
Attainment 8	Achieve equivalent attainment to national non disadvantaged	September 21
Percentage of Grade 5+ in English and maths	Considering prior attainment – increasing the proportion of disadvantaged students obtaining 5+	September 21
Other	Improve pp attendance to national average	September 21
Ebacc entry	Increase number of disadvantaged students achieving EBACC	September 21

The current year 2020-2021

The Academy is aware that some disadvantaged students face many complex barriers during their education, which make effective learning very difficult. Other students have very specific needs and others, have few barriers at all. Some of the main difficulties faced by disadvantaged students that pertain to the Academy are identified below, although it must also be said that this is not an exhaustive list and that the difficulties encountered are not unique to those who are disadvantaged.

The main barriers faced by eligible students in 2020-2021 are:

Some struggle to attend regularly and of these some are persistently absent.
Some students need extensive pastoral support for a variety of reasons.
Some students struggle with the increased complexity of organization with a secondary environment and increased demands for independent work.
Some students struggle to manage their behaviour.
Some students face significant challenges in their lives and have social, emotional and mental health needs that prevent them from learning.
Some students have low levels of literacy and numeracy which impedes their learning and their confidence  
Some students with high prior attainment need additional help to enable them to fully achieve their potential.
Some students need targeted support to understand and use extended forms of spoken English.
Some students have little aspiration for the future and so do not understand why they need to do well in their exams and so limit their own potential.
Some students lack access to the internet and the use of computers to support their studies.
Some students lack space to study with adult support.
Some students need to experience a wealth of enrichment experiences in-order to widen their horizons and unlock future opportunities.
School uniform can cause significant challenges for some families as can transport.
Some students do not have access to a healthy diet which impacts on their general well-being.
All students need the highest quality of teaching in every classroom.

Teaching priorities for current academic year 2020-2021

Measure	Activity
Priority 1	High quality teaching and learning across the curriculum including additional curriculum time via a well-structured intervention timetable
Priority 2	SMART activities to consolidate prior learning and ensuring that staff have high expectation with respect to the quality and return rate of homework set.
Barriers to learning these priorities address	Disadvantaged students have variable parental support, influencing outcomes.
Projected spending	£159200

Targeted academic support for the current academic year

Measure	Activity
Priority 1	Numeracy and literacy interventions across KS3 for low to middle attaining disadvantaged pupils
Priority 2	Ensuring that support is in place so that the disadvantaged fully achieve their potential
Barriers to learning these priorities address	Ensuring that the school is fully staffed by well qualified teachers to help support the development numeracy and literacy skills and the progress the disadvantaged make.
Projected spending	£27550

Wider strategies for the current academic year

Measure	Activity
Priority 1	Ensuring more regular attendance for PP including those who are persistently absent
Priority 2	Raising aspirations
Barriers to learning these priorities address	Improving attendance is key to raising the academic success of disadvantaged students.
Projected spending	£60614

Monitoring and implementation

Area	Challenge	Mitigating action
Teaching	Ensure all students have access to high quality teaching and learning across all curriculum areas.	Robust process of monitoring teaching and learning in place. A CPD programme that reflects/highlights current pedagogical thought.
Targeted support	Ensuring that the curriculum allows for intervention to take place within the normal school day. Ensuring that identification of students who need support is robust.	Extra staffing to ensure intervention can take place with small groups. Smart use of data to ensure early identification of those students who are likely to fall behind
Wider strategies	Engaging with families that are the hardest to reach. Trying to change the culture so that education is valued.	Working closely with other agencies to help improve attendance. Use of links with university and other to raise aspirations.

Review: last year’s aims and outcomes

Aim	Outcome
Achieve the national average P8 figure for all schools	Achieved, the school disadvantaged P8 (+0.25)
Achieve national average for attainment for all schools	Achieved, the schools disadvantaged A8 (44.39).
Achieve average English and maths 5+ scores for similar schools	Awaiting publication of these National results.

How pupil premium was allocated last year

62% was allocated to actions focussed on teaching and learning in the curriculum.

26% was allocated to actions focussed on social, emotional and behavioural issues.

5% was allocated to actions focused on enrichment beyond the curriculum.

4% was allocated to actions focused on families and communities.

3% was allocated to actions focused on alternative learning pathways.

What is the Year 7 catch-up premium?

The Catch-Up Premium is additional funding given to schools in England to support Year 7 pupils who achieved below the expected standard in reading or maths at the end of Key Stage 2. It is the expectation that this funding is used to support the improvement of the students’ reading and maths in Year 7.

Use of additional funding in 2019-20

Targeted support

Pupils benefit from small group and individual teaching with a focus on primary teaching techniques in Year 7 to build upon and re-enforce a strong skill base in reading, writing, spelling, comprehension and numeracy. The purpose is to provide pupils with a toolkit of skills that allows them to access the mainstream curriculum more effectively.

Depending on specific needs, some pupils receive small group teaching and bespoke learning packages to build upon and reinforce their skills base to allow them to access the mainstream curriculum more effectively.

Whole school literacy and numeracy

Literacy activities in form time include regular sessions devoted to reading, either using audio books or promoting independent reading.

Whole school development of the vocabulary of pupils through use of tier 2 and tier 3 words encourage the explicit teaching of vocabulary. Staff ‘live model’ the use of vocabulary and ‘Sound like an expert’ is evident in classrooms.

Whole school focus on literacy and numeracy skills development across the curriculum. All departments ensure that literacy and numeracy are developed and enhanced within their curriculum as appropriate.

Additional resources

Purchase of additional texts and resources to support students with low confidence and reluctance in reading, writing, spelling and numeracy.

Impact of funding:

Towards the end of the Spring term, teachers reported evidence of good progress in both literacy and numeracy. However, formal assessments did not take place.

Progress was maintained as much as possible during lockdown, as a result of online learning platforms (Teams)and teaching online lessons.

COVID Catch-up Premium Plan

Summary information
School	Easington Academy
Academic Year	2020-21	Total Catch-Up Premium	£80 x 749 = £52,920	Number of pupils
Academic Year 2020-21		Post-16 Premium

Guidance

Children and young people across the country have experienced unprecedented disruption to their education as a result of coronavirus (COVID-19). Specific funding has been provided to support their pupils to catch up for lost teaching over the previous months, in line with the curriculum expectations for the next academic year. Schools have the flexibility to spend their funding in the best way for their cohort and circumstances.

Areas/Issues identified from September 2020 arising from lockdown period

Confidence in reading skills are much lower than normally seen in Year 7, on transition from primary school.
Significant difficulty in recall of basic skills amongst Year 7 is very evident. Many children are not able to recall addition facts, times tables and have forgotten once taught calculation strategies.
During lockdown, the curriculum was significantly altered so that material more suited to online learning was taught. Even so, there is variability in the impact on learning due to many varied and complex factors. For some pupils there are now significant gaps whilst for others there are few.
Teaching is now taking place in a dramatically different form to pre-lockdown, requiring different methodologies in order to maintain high quality and structured learning for pupils.
Some pupils and families have needed significant emotional support due to experiences during lockdown.
Some pupils are highly anxious due to issues following lockdown.
Safeguarding concerns are significantly higher than pre-lockdown.
The issues relating to catch-up are now compounded by further periods of isolation/illness. These are impacting individuals, groups of pupils and whole year groups in a way that is unpredictable both in timing and length. Added together with teachers also having to self-isolate/becoming ill, and the impact is further adding to the highly variable range of gaps in students’ knowledge, in all subjects.
Many pupils are struggling to relate effectively with their peers, having been reliant on social media for communications. This is causing many difficulties for some with inter-personal relationships leading to behaviour difficulties in school.

Pupils with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities and those who are vulnerable, are a priority in all provision above.

Cost Area

Estimated cost

Pastoral/Behaviour Support (Area 5/6/9)

Pastoral/behavioural support is of paramount importance in enabling pupils to access learning and attend well. Due to students being allocated strict “zones” according to year groups, LSU areas and subsequently staffing has needed to be increased.

£29,000

Year 7 Baseline Testing

All Year 7 took part in online Cognitive Assessment Tests. This was essential as KS2 data is not available. These tests have provided teachers with valuable information regarding strengths and weaknesses, especially in literacy and numeracy. In addition to purchasing the tests, invigilators were also used to ensure effective administration of these tests.

£2805

Curriculum Adaptations - Years 7 – 11

In every subject area, the curriculum has been redeveloped to account for changes during lockdown. The changes for this year are progressive, in order to recover key learning from last academic year and build forwards during the current year. The curriculum is reviewed on a monthly basis to ensure that class time is maximised with in-class assessment feeding into this process.

HODS across the Trust meet regularly in order to plan, quality assure and moderate curriculum provision.

Each year group is allocated 1 extra hour after school per week for “catch up”. Any student who is identified as needing this support is encouraged to attend.

£10500

Curriculum, Key Stage 3

Interactive online ‘text books’ have been written for every class and subject to support all pupils in catchup and consolidation of learning. These have been used as reference materials and very specifically to support catchup, consolidation and deepening of learning during holiday periods, as supplemental homework and to support revision.

£6,000

Small group and One-to-One Tuition

In Year 11 any student identified as needing intervention in maths is provided with small group/one to one tuition.

£5500

Teaching and Learning

Staff development is crucial as lessons are now 2+ hours long to reduce movement across the school. CPD has been provided to support with planning for such extended periods of time. Training has been given to help staff engage with Microsoft Teams’ teaching and with the use of Teams for sharing of resource materials with pupils. This has helped staff to manage the very different working environment as well as manage teaching and also providing materials for those at home, self-isolating. Staff have the skills to teach classes if they are at home, with adult support in class.

£2500

Exam Concessions

Electronic reading pens were purchased in order to ensure Year 11 students entitled to a reader were able to complete their mock exams safely. This meant that there was no need for one to one contact.

£3500

Infrastructure

Significant investment has been given to the development an online platform (VLE) for all year groups and subjects. This supports independent learning, homework and learning when self-isolating.

All classrooms have been equipped with webcams and microphones to enable staff in school to teach pupils at home live through Teams and visa versa.

£6825

Intended Impact

The expected impact of the strategies above, is to enable pupils to regain confidence in themselves, their learning and to catch-up to a point that they are competent within their year group expectations and have a solid foundation from which to take their next steps.

It is expected that all pupils will meet their end of year individual progression targets and that they will be ready to make a successful transition to their next academic year.

Review

The impact of the Catch-up plan will be reviewed on a termly basis by the Local Academy Council