Coronavirus catch up funding

Covid-19 ‘Catch up’ Funding

In June, 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 will not include Nursery numbers, meaning we predict Sacred Heart RC Primary and Nursery School will be in receipt of £14,000 (175 x £80). The spending of this money will be up to schools to allocate as they best see fit.

At Sacred Heart RC Primary and Nursery School, this money will be used in order to provide:

Curriculum resources and materials that support “catch up” and the mental health and wellbeing of the pupils.
Additional support staff to develop the outcomes of children who have been identified as needing “catch up” in their learning.

School Aims in regards to use of the catch up funding

The mental health and wellbeing needs of pupils are met and supported by the school.
Attainment outcomes at end of 2020-21 for all year groups will be at least in line with those at the end of 2019-20.

Catch Up at Sacred Heart RC Primary and Nursery School for all our pupils will involve:

Baseline assessment of learning and of basic skills to identify major gaps

Teachers will work to identify gaps in learning and adapt their teaching and early interventions accordingly.

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.

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.

Additional lesson time on core teaching.

Phonics, 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 are be taught on alternative half terms rather than weekly lessons across the term.

Focus on consolidation of basic skills

The core skills which enable successful learning will require increased curriculum time across all year groups. These include: phonics, handwriting, spelling of high frequency and tricky words, basic sentence punctuation, times tables recall, basic addition & subtraction fact recall and reading skills relevant to ARE

Well sequenced, purposeful learning

We follow Letters and Sounds to provide systematic and synthetic phonics teaching for pupils in the school. As we transitioned back into school for September we purchased the Lancashire English Bridging units which have been adapted to focus upon missed objectives and consolidation of basic skills moving from one year group to the next. In maths, we utilise the Lancashire Maths Planning and Mastery Maths as our core teaching. We have used catch up premium to purchase IDL Maths and English to support pupils working below age related expectations (ARE).

Catch Up at Sacred Heart RC Primary and Nursery School for some of our pupils will involve:

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 Intervention time to practice and embed basic skills

Following the baseline assessment, a range of interventions will be put in place to support the the pupils in closing gaps in learning and in making good progress. Interventions will run throughout the school day and will vary dependent upon the needs of the pupils.

Interventions

Phonics Tracker/ Boost
Fast Track Phonics
Bounce Back Phonics
Nessy Reading and Spelling
Individual Daily Reading
IDL English
IDL Maths
Maths Intervention
Intervention provided by the Ethnic Minority, Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Team
Writing Intervention
Precision Teach
Handwriting
Speech and Language
Talk Boost
Fine Motor Skills
Name Building/ writing
Sensory
Nurture
Personalised Curriculum
1-1 tuition provided by the EAL team