Skip to content ↓

Evaluated-COVID-19_catch-up_premium_report-_Portland-1

Evaluated COVID-19 catch-up premium report

Our Coop ‘Ways of Being’ drives all strategic decisions:

Be yourself, always

Do what matters most

Show you care

Succeed together

Here at Coop Academy Portland we are committed to providing the highest quality education for all our children regardless of background or barrier to learning in all aspects of school life.

“Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are likely to have been more affected particularly severely by closures and may need more support to return to school and settle back into school life. Whilst all pupils will benefit from the EEF recommendations, it is likely that some forms of support will be particularly beneficial to disadvantaged.”

(Covid-19 Support Guide for Schools – June 2020)

Teaching - great teaching is the most important lever schools have to improve outcomes for their pupils

Targeted Academic Support - there is extensive evidence supporting the impact of high-quality one to one or group tuition as a catch up strategy. Tuition delivered by qualified teachers is likely to have the biggest impact

Pupil Assessment and Feedback - assessment information can help teachers determine how to most effectively support their pupils. Every pupil will have been affected differently by Covid-19. Setting aside time to enable teachers to assess pupils’ wellbeing and learning needs is likely to make it easier for teachers and other school staff to provide effective support

Wider Support - schools have provided extensive pastoral support to pupils and families during the pandemic. Additional support in the new school year could focus on providing regular and supportive communications with parent, especially to increase attendance and engagement with learning

COVID-19 catch-up premium spending: summary

SUMMARY INFORMATION

Total number of pupils:

Total catch-up premium budget:

Currently 158

(Catch-up funding based on 151)

£12,080

STRATEGY STATEMENT

Coop Academy’s catch-up priorities:

Amount of catch-up premium received per pupil:

£76.45

(Catch-up funding based on £80 per pupil)

● Coop Academy Portland serves the area of Birkenhead North, which is one of the most deprived boroughs nationally (one of just 5 neighborhoods in the UK ranked consistently among the most deprived 100 LAs since 2004 [IMD]) with half of all children living in low-income households (3x national average). This significantly impacts learning engagement; self-esteem and aspirations for future life, and key skills in language, literacy and arithmetic ● Our catch-up priorities focuses on language development in the early years and tries to impact on improving feelings of ‘I can do this’ in mathematics. Mathematics is an area identified in question level analysis where gaps in learning are most pronounced, particularly for our disadvantaged children, and where pupil confidence is low. Arithmetic including basic number knowledge, times tables and four operations have been identified as key skills to access a secondary school curriculum and a focus on upper KS2 mathematics gaps have been consequently identified as a priority area for learning acceleration

Page | 1

The core approaches Coop Academy Portland are implementing and how these will contribute to helping pupils catch up missed learning:

● Coop Academy Portland are primarily focusing on 1:1 work as a catch-up model based on recommendations by the EEF in both Reception focusing on language development through the NELI programme and in Year 6 through the 1:1 maths tutoring programme; this will contribute to addressing key vocabulary gaps with our younger children and allows for bespoke plugging of arithmetic gaps in basic number knowledge, times tables and four operations.

● Investment in a large scale maths programme delivered by a company called PET – XI will also be purchased from the Covid-19 catch-up funding which involves all Y5 and Y6 pupils in 3 full days. Start of task and end of task assessment ‘snap-shots’ will be taken in a high-energy, ‘active’ way which supports our quest to improve self-esteem and engagement with maths.

The overall aims of your catch-up premium strategy:

● Coop Academy Portland aims to address language development issues in Reception and encourage feelings of positive self-worth and success following completion of a programme of study. ● We aim to improve confidence in maths and address explicit arithmetic gaps in skills and knowledge with our upper key stage 2 children, particularly our disadvantaged children. ● We aim to ensure a readiness for the Year 1 curriculum following a Reception focus on language development.

● We aim to raise the attainment of arithmetic and ensure a readiness for secondary school with our Year 5 and Year 6 pupils.

Barriers to learning

BARRIERS TO FUTURE ATTAINMENT

Academic barriers:

A

B

C

Language development including vocabulary use and ‘Speech and Language’ issues

Low levels of literacy and numeracy skills

Poor engagement to learning, low aspirations for future careers and low self-esteem and confidence

ADDITIONAL BARRIERS

External barriers:

D

Persistent absenteeism with disadvantaged learners

E

Parental engagement

Planned expenditure for current academic year

Quality of teaching for all

Action

What’s the evidence and

Intended outcome

rationale for this choice?

and success criteria

How will you make sure it’s

implemented well?

Staff lead

When will

you review

this?

Evaluation and Impact

To deliver 3x days with high energy

practitioners engaging and challenging

negative maths

EEF identifies Behaviour

Pupils’ feel more

engagement strategies can have a

equipped to tackle

moderate impact on learning, but

maths problems and

more importantly outlines how

see themselves as

necessary this if for learning to take

mathematicians who

place

All staff aware of the programme and key upper key stage 2 staff to

witness high energy practitioners at work learning from alternative assessment opportunities

Mrs Peace

(Interim SEND)

Review impact at after each day’s session and between assessment

data drops in

Only 1 out of 3 days completed due to local lockdown in spring term 2021 and then a no visitor policy in summer 2021. The 1st was incredibly successful however with ALL children completing

2-step problems independently at the end of the day (differentiated)and completing an average of 15 additional arithmetic questions on the 2018 sample SATs arithmetic paper.

Page | 2

mindset and promoting self-regulation of pupils in Year 6 addressing gaps in arithmetic,

particularly

disadvantaged learners with interim tasks and challenges to maintain momentum between sessions

EEF looks at self-regulation through

can succeed; an

the development of self-regulation

average of 5 months’

and executive function and reports

progress with

this is consistently linked with

disadvantaged

successful learning, including

learners across 4

mathematics and problem solving.

month period (Dec to

Strategies that seek to improve

March)

learning by increasing self-regulation

Accelerated progress

have an average impact of five

in basic number

additional months’ progress (EEF

knowledge, times

2018)

tables and four

operations

DfE’s catch-up premium guidance

documented with

start and end task

EEF’s COVID-19 support guide for

improvements

schools

Clear meetings with PET-XI team to share pupil information and maths prior learning to ensure teaching is tailored effectively. Regular updates between engagement days to share what is going well and for more support for staff and pupils if needed.

Mrs Moscrop

(Maths Lead,

Year 6 teacher)

Mrs Allen

(Assessment

Lead)

school to see direct impact on arithmetic attainment at

Feb (mid-year) point

Pupil voice at Feb (midpoint of year) will

reflect impact on

engagement

and feelings of ‘I can do

maths’

Follow up sessions in close succession as planned would have consolidated learning more effectively and given a longer term sense of becoming a mathematician.

Total budgeted cost:

£3,500

Targeted support

Action

What’s the evidence and

Intended outcome

rationale for this choice?

and success criteria

How will you make sure it’s

implemented well?

Staff lead

When will

you review

this?

To deliver the Nuffield Early Language

Intervention (NELI)

project from January 2021 to June 2021

over 20 weeks. This involves small-group and one-to-one

language teaching

sessions for reception age children identified as needing targeted language support.

Children who would benefit from NELI are identified by an initial app-based assessment of pupils’ oral

language, called

LanguageScreen. The intervention by trained school staff, such as a teaching assistant.

Several EEF trials have found that

pupils’ oral language

NELI improves both children’s oral

improves by three

language and early literacy skills. A

months of additional

recent trial of the programme found

progress

that children made on average

compared to children in the

comparison group – making NELI

the most robustly evaluated early

language intervention available in

England.

DfE’s catch-up premium guidance

EEF’s COVID-19 support guide for

schools

All staff involved are trained and know the steps of the programme and the aims of it

The programme schedule is adhered to with the wider staff team and parents fully aware of the priority of this programme in catch-up and progress

Mrs Peace

(Interim SEND)

Miss Smith

(SEND

Support)

Mrs Walsh

(English Lead)

Review impact at 10 week

mark

(mid-program me review)

and again at

the end of the 20 week

programme.

60% of the disadvantaged cohort completing the 20 week NELI programme improved by 3 months in the final WELCOM assessment. A significant factor in the effectiveness of this intervention was pupil attendance. All children who attend for over 96% of sessions improved by the 3 months. The target was 4 months progress but this was not met due to wider additional needs of the children undertaking the intervention i.e. SEND, EAL

To deliver high quality 1:1 maths tuition to

Year 6 pupils with a focus on arithmetic

A recent research paper by the

Pupils to achieve

Education Endowment Foundation

over 80% on their

(EEF) states that university trainees

Arithmetic SATs

and recent graduates can give

paper and for this

disadvantaged primary pupils

learning to impact on

small-group tuition which can boost

confidence feelings of

their maths results by three months’

‘I can do maths’

External company will run the

programme; endorsed by the MAT CEO and regular meetings with project lead to monitor and track content and progress will be

oragnised with Year 6 teacher and Maths lead and Assessment Lead

Mrs Moscrop

(Maths Lead,

Year 6 teacher)

Mrs Allen

(Assessment

Lead)

Half termly

review with

pupils, project leads, external tutor and

assessment

lead to

monitor impact

1:1 maths tuition was the most effective programme for directly impacting on raw score data in arithmetic. Final arithmetic assessments in the past 2019 SATs paper put tutored children improving on average by 14 marks. For almost all of the 12 children, this equated to a scaled score closer to the expected standard - putting the children as ‘near misses’ which demonstrates progress from the previous year’s outcomes.

Page | 3

over the course of a year. (EEF).

Three months extra

(EEF 2018)

progress for

disadvantaged pupils

of 1:1

practices

Total budgeted cost:

£8,580

Other approaches

Action

What’s the evidence and

Intended outcome

rationale for this choice?

and success criteria

How will you make sure it’s

implemented well?

Staff lead

When will

you review

this?

Academic Mentor for EYFS secured for Jan 2021

Involvement in

‘Birkenhead

Regeneration Project’ across academic year 20/21

These are significant barriers to

1:1 and small group

learning for our children

work in Reception

and Year 1 on

communication,

language, literacy

and arithmetic

The project is a local multi-agency

To improve early

project, funded by national charities

identification

including Shine, MIND and the

processes for SEND

Morgan Foundation supporting

and vulnerable

SEND and disadvantaged children in

children so that

schools and their communities; we

teaching can be

are involved because of the

tailored effectively for

resources for monitoring small steps

need in order to close

of progress to help monitor the

the attainment gap.

impact of our class-based catch-up

To ensure budgets

work and the network of support to

can be effectively

facilitate learning in our most

allocated to address

vulnerable children and families.

priority need of SEND

As the project is multi-faceted, a

children

number of local agencies are

involved in their project and will be

working with our children as part of

their own research tasks including

health visitors, social workers and

educational psychologists

Clear outcomes and regular

meetings with Academic Mentor; clear programme of impact and a well-thought out timetable ‘squeezing the pips’ out of the school day

The monitoring programme for the project is already outlined with regular progress meetings and working group meetings to ensure the programme is a success; internal assessments or task will be reviewed after the implementation and

evaluated effectively to maximize impact next time.

Our SEND children will have their small steps of success monitored and reported and will feel successful

Mrs McMahon (EYFS Lead)

Mrs Peace

(Interim SEND, Headteacher)

Mrs Peace

(Interim SEND, Headteacher)

Mrs Allen

(Assessment

Lead)

Ongoing

through the

year but

formally

alongside

university

termly reviews

Ongoing

through the

year but

formally

alongside

project

evaluation

reviews

Our Academic Mentor was exceptionally effective at engaging our families throughout the lockdown period and beyond Match 8th when the children come back to school as she worked hard to build up a relationship with the wider family for a significant amount of time before engaging in the 1:1 maths work. This meant that take-up was high with all but one pupil attending all sessions (whereas previous lockdown strategies struggled to engage more than 50% of pupils).

The year 5 pupils chosen for this programme could only answer a handful of arithmetic questions (maximum 6 out of 20). The average score was 14 out of 20 on end of year maths arithmetic assessments which we were thrilled with.

This will continue into academic year 2021-22 as school to school work and external agency involvement was limited due to Covid restrictions.

Total budgeted cost:

£4,000

Page | 4