Catch up funding report

In June 2020, a £1 billion fund for education was announced by the government.

Guidance can be found at: (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-catch-up-premium)

The catch-up premium was part funded on a per pupil basis which is based on the previous year’s census and does not include Nursery numbers. Over the academic years 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 Ruislip Gardens received £25,760.00.

The spending of this money was down to schools to allocate as they saw best. 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 Ruislip Gardens, this money was used in order to:

Purchase curriculum resources and materials that support pupils to get “back on track”. These include: reading books for KS1 and LKS2, Timestable Rockstars, DU Maths subscription and purchasing IT resources to support remote learning.
Pay for the school-led tutoring programme (teacher interventions) for disadvantaged pupils and others who were identified as needing “catch up” in their learning.
Fund additional support staff to develop the outcomes of children who were identified as needing “catch up” in their learning.
Fund additional teacher for Year 6 class, to support children needing “catch up” in their learning
Fund ELSA training for 2 members of staff and the resources
Fund Behaviour support for those children who struggled with the transition back to school.

The school also used extra funding from the schools main budget to provide extra tutoring for children.

Aims

The broad aims for “catch up” at Ruislip Gardens:

Attainment outcomes at the 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 Ruislip Gardens is

(For all children)

Working through well sequenced, purposeful learning schemes. For example, our school-created writing schemes are being adapted to focus on missed objectives and consolidate the basics. In maths, we have utilised the Deepening Understanding (DU) Maths Scheme as our spine of learning and we have been able to use catch up premium to purchase resources to support this scheme.
Focus on consolidation of basic skills. The core skills which enable successful learning required increased curriculum time across all year groups. These included: 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 required an 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 were taught as blocked days rather than weekly lessons in the autumn term.
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. New books were purchased in line with the school's new phonics scheme.
Assessment of learning and of basic skills to identify major gaps. Teachers worked to identify gaps in learning and adapt teaching accordingly.
Time spent on mental health, wellbeing and social skills development. This will continue to be at the core of all catch up work as many children will have missed out on opportunities with their learning and social, emotional development

(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 practise basic skills. This was dependent on the need of the children in order to reestablish good progress in the essentials (phonics and reading, increasing vocabulary, writing and mathematics) and there was flexibility on timetables to allow this.

Catch up at Ruislip Gardens 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