Hermitage Academy – The Year 7 Catch-up premium
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.
The impact of the funding is evaluated at the end of each term in Year 7 and this is followed through into Year 8
In 2019-2020, the school has received £11,337 additional funding to support 55 students (28 in maths, 47 in reading with 20 overlapping in both).
Use of additional funding in 2019-20
Targeted support Pupils benefit from small group and individual teaching in Year 7 following through to Year 8 as needed, to build up 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 one-to-one teaching from subject specialists in literacy and numeracy. An additional teacher also listened to pupils read one-to-one during the Autumn and Spring term. Pupils all have access to Lexia at home and some pupils have sessions in school to develop their literacy skills.
Whole school literacy and
numeracy Literacy activities in form time weekly including opportunities for debate following newspaper reading and also a regular session devoted to reading. Whole school development of the vocabulary of pupils through use of tier 2 and tier 3 words and the Frayer model for the explicit teaching of vocabulary. 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, in pupils books. However, formal assessments did not take place to quantify gains.
Pupils did gain confidence in reading and enjoyed one-to-one sessions. In mathematics, most pupils made progress in closing gaps in prior learning and began to catch up with their peers.
Progress was maintained as much as possible during lockdown, as a result on online learning platforms and teaching online lessons.
Catch-Up Premium Plan 2020-2021
Summary information
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School
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Hermitage Academy
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Total Catch-Up Premium
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£80,320
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Post-16 Premium
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£3218
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Guidance
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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.
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Areas/Issues identified from September 2020 arising from lockdown period
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- 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 amongst both staff and students. 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.
- There is now an urgent need to catch up with learning relating to careers education, especially for those in KS4/5
- The infrastructure of the IT systems was never designed for online teaching. During lockdown, staff used their own laptops or old school laptops. When in school and teaching both a class and online, further equipment is needed and has had to be installed.
Pupils with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities and those who are vulnerable, are a priority in all provision above.
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Cost Area
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Contribution to costs from Covid Premium
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Pastoral Support (Area 5/6/7/9)
Pastoral staff have been given reduced teaching timetables so that they are able to provide the needed support for pupils. Pastoral support is of paramount importance in enabling pupils to access learning and attend well.
Specific increases to facilitate this include additional staffing in DSLO time (SLT), Behaviour support (SLT), Attendance (SLT), Special Educational Need Co-ordinator time, Attendance support staff, Pastoral Support staff.
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£30,000
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Year 7 Baseline Testing (Area 1/2)
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
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£1,633
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Curriculum Adaptations - Years 7 – 13 (Area 3/8)
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.
The time dedicated to whole class teaching has been increased by 30 minutes per day for all years with an additional 2 hours per week for Year 11.
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£10,000
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Curriculum, Key Stage 3 (Area 3/8)
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.
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£5,000
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Small group tuition (Area 1/2/8)
Where specific groups of pupils are identified as having fallen behind, to an extent that the in-class recovery will not suffice, two additional lessons have been provided per week in both English and mathematics for Years 7/8/9. Small group tuition takes place in other subject areas, arranged by the Head of Department.
Specialist intervention lessons are held where needed to support KS4 and KS5 students.
One-to-One tuition (Area 1/2/8)
In Year 7, where reading skills have been lost, individual reading sessions take place on a regular basis.
In Years 7-11 one-to-one tuition is provided by specialist teachers (including one dedicated mathematics teacher) to provide the bespoke teaching needed where small group/whole class teaching is not able to meet an individual’s needs.
In Years 12/13 one-to-one tuition is provided by specialist teachers each week in all subjects. 10 Graphics tablets have been purchased to support A-Level Science and maths remote learning (£50 per tablet)
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£31,000 (of which £contribution from post-16 funding is £3128)
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Teaching and Learning (Area 4)
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.
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£2000
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Careers (Area 10)
Opportunities for work experience have been greatly curtailed and this difficulty continues. Additional staffing is in place to ensure that those in KS4 are fully prepared for the next stage in their education.
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£1000
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Infrastructure (Area 11)
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.
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£3000 (hardware costs only included here)
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Intended Impact
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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.
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Review
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The impact of the Catch-up plan will be reviewed on a termly basis by the Local Academy Council
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