Pupil premium

The Government believes that the pupil premium, which is additional to main school funding, is the best way to address the current underlying inequalities between children eligible for free school meals (FSM) and their wealthier peers by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the pupils who need it most.

It is for schools to decide how the pupil premium, allocated to schools per FSM pupil, is spent, since they are best placed to assess what additional provision should be made for the individual pupils within their responsibility.

New measures have been included in the performance tables that capture the achievement of those disadvantaged pupils covered by the pupil premium.

Attached below is the proposed spending plan for 2019-20.

Pupil Premium strategy 2019/20

Pupil Premium funding action plan 2018/19 review

Catch-up funding

The catch-up premium is government funding to assist schools in providing additional support in literacy and numeracy. Each school is entitled to an additional £500 for each year 7 student who did not achieve at least level 4 in reading and/or maths at the end of key stage 2.

Catch-up funding review – 2019/20

What is the key priority?
This is aimed at each year 7 student who did not achieve at least level 4 in the key stage 2 national curriculum tests in reading and/or mathematics. The purpose of this funding is to enable schools to deliver additional support, such as individual tuition or intensive support in small groups, for those students that most need it.

What do we expect to see? 
Targeted additional support strategies resulting in these students being able to:
– improve their levels of attainment and progress in English and mathematics.
– close the attainment gap relative to academy averages.
– have full access to the curriculum

How is the catch-up premium used? 
The following interventions/resources have been put into place:

  • 1-to-1 English and mathematics lessons in support of catch-up targets
  • 1-to-1 reading during tutor time
  • Small group or 1-to-1 language and phonics work
  • Specialist literacy provision in years 7, through specialist support (reading comprehension/sentence structure)
  • Accelerated reader – promoting reading throughout the whole academy, aimed at improving literacy and encouraging reading for pleasure
  • Introduction of ReadWrite Inc to provide a structured and systematic approach to teaching literacy
  • My Maths – allows online maths support within the academy and at home

Coronavirus (Covid-19) catch-up premium

The coronavirus (Covid-19) catch-up premium is aimed at helping schools mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on education. The purpose of this funding is to help children and young people ‘catch up’ with their education and to make up for lost teaching time. The following information details how we will use our funding at Queen Elizabeth’s Academy.

How we intend to use the grant

Quality-first teaching and interventions – the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) recommends a tiered approach to ‘closing gaps’. Tier 1 relates to high-quality teaching and learning for all, tier 2 relates to targeted support using teaching assistants (TAs), high quality one-to-one or small group interventions and planning for pupils with special educational needs (SEN) with tier 3 offering support in pastoral aspects, attendance, and social and emotional learning.

  • Tier 1: Teaching staff will attend Ambition Institute webinars. An inset day will be dedicated to planning for future periods of remote learning, using best practice teaching focused on recorded content and modelling. Coaching will be implemented for early careers teachers, with additional PPA allocated to this, alongside the ECF pilot project involvement.
  • Tier 2: In key stage 3, we will ensure subject specific literacy and numeracy teaching assistants deliver intervention, using Star Reader software and GL Progress tests to inform next steps. At key stage 4, we will deliver one to one targeted intervention catch up sessions with subject experts.
  • Tier 3: We will continue to build on current strategies to ensure good attendance for all students, so that no learning time is lost. A carefully sequenced pastoral tutor and RSE curriculum, including explicit social and emotional skill development, will be developed and delivered over the academic year.

How we will assess the effect of this expenditure on the educational attainment of our students

Assessment points

  • Formative and summative internal assessments will demonstrate progress for all students across the academic year.
  • External assessments – GL Progress English and maths; CATs; Star Reader – will accurately provide baselines from which to measure progress and impact.
  • A detailed analysis of progress will be presented to senior and middle leaders after each data point, this will include analysis of all groups so trends can be spotted and acted upon.

16 to 19 tuition fund

The 16-19 tuition fund is £96 million of one-off funding for the 2020-21 academic year only. It is ringfenced funding for schools, colleges and all other 16 to 19 providers to mitigate the disruption to learning arising from coronavirus. The funding should be used to support small group tuition for 16 to 19 students in English, maths, and other courses where learning has been disrupted. Although the actual tuition does not need to be for GCSE English or maths, the students supported all need to be those who had not achieved grade 4 in at least one of those subjects at this level by age 16.

How will we use the 16-19 tuition funding?

Queen Elizabeth’s Academy is eligible to receive £343 from this fund for small group tuition. We will be using this funding to support students who have not yet achieved a grade 4 in English and/or maths at GCSE. We will be prioritising those students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) where appropriate. This tuition will be in addition to students’ normal timetabled GCSE English and maths lessons and will be in groups of no more than 5.