"Disadvantaged children are making similar progress to their class mates”

[Ofsted, January 2018]

The school used the Pupil Premium Grant in a variety of ways. These included paying for extra classroom support and resources, accessing out of hours activities and accessing curricular activities such as visitors to school or school visits.

The school tracks the progress of children for whom it receives Pupil Premium and shows the progress made in reading, writing and maths.

Click the links below for previous reports detailing the impact of this funding at Theydon Bois Primary School:

Background

Pupil Premium Grant (PPG) is additional funding to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils. It is based on the number of pupils:

• registered as eligible for free school meals at any point
• registered as a child of a parent serving in the UK’s Armed Forces in the past 6 years
• in local authority care for 1 day or more
• has left local authority care because of one of the following:
  • adoption
  • a special guardianship order
  • a child arrangements order

Principles

Theydon Bois Primary School is committed to diminishing the difference between the attainment of socially disadvantaged pupils and their peers and the PPG funding forms a vital part of achieving this.

• All members of staff and governors accept responsibility for socially disadvantaged pupils and are committed to meeting their pastoral, social and academic needs within the school environment.
• We ensure that appropriate provision is made for pupils who belong to vulnerable groups ensuring that the needs of socially disadvantaged pupils are adequately assessed and addressed.
• We recognise that not all pupils who have ever received free school meals will be socially disadvantaged.
• We recognise that not all pupils who are socially disadvantaged are registered or qualify for free school meals.
• The Governors reserve the right to allocate the pupil premium funding to support any pupils or groups of pupils the school that has legitimately been identified as being socially disadvantaged or underperforming.

Purpose

PPG funding is primarily used to support interventions to:

• improve attendance
• offer emotional support through the Learning Mentor Team enabling children to better access the curriculum
• ensuring all disadvantaged children meet fortnightly with their champion to discuss their personal objectives
• raise attainment in reading, writing and mathematics
• support Pupil Premium families financially if required to pay for school trips for example

All interventions are designed with the ultimate outcome to increase the percentage of pupils making at least expected or better progress from their starting points and/or achieving age-related expectations (ARE) and beyond to a greater depth at the standard (GDS) depending on their needs. For example – a child with learning difficulties may not be able to reach ARE but they can still make good progress from their starting point.

As a school we feel that it is imperative to focus on early intervention to ensure that the children who start school with low attainment can make accelerated progress to reach age-related expectations and beyond.

Monitoring & Evaluation

The school’s evaluation of its own performance is rigorous. Tracking of progress over time for each pupil is thorough and facilitates timely and appropriate intervention.

To guarantee that the Pupil Premium Grant funding is used effectively, we ensure that:

• A wide range of data is used – achievement data, pupils’ work, observations, learning walks, case studies, and staff, parent and pupil voice.
• Assessment data is collected at the start and end of each intervention so that impact can be monitored regularly. These are closely moderated or use approved standardised tests to ensure they are accurate.
• Termly pupil progress meetings between teaching staff and senior leaders enable quick identification of any challenges or barriers to progress and allows the school to develop sensible strategies and interventions to promote improvement for all children - not just the children who are in receipt of PPG.
• Regular feedback about performance is given to children.
• Interventions are adapted or changed if they are not working.
• Our Pupil Premium Champion maintains an overview of pupil premium provision and spending.
• The Key Stage Leaders, SENCO and Headteacher collate all performance data, analysing and evaluating the effectiveness and value for money of each intervention.
• Quantitative data sources used include ASP, assessment outcomes, Tapestry in the Early Years as well as whole school data (using Assessment Manager) to evaluate impact in terms of overall attainment and progress. 

CATCH-UP Premium

• We aim to provide catch up sessions to every child from Reception to 6 as a starting point.
• We are employing a teacher to cover for the class teacher either a morning or an afternoon per week over a 20 week period.
• The class teacher will teach small groups skills, concepts etc that they have missed during lockdown as well as addressing general gaps in understanding whilst the Cover teacher covers the rest of the class, teaching foundation subjects, Reading Skills and Maths Revision
• If a teacher is teaching a catch up session in the morning they have to teach English and Maths the afternoon or vice versa.
• A teacher will teach a morning one week and an afternoon the next so each teacher teach a longer session and a shorter session over a two week period
• Teachers will focus on gaps or missed topics/ skills in English Reading and Writing as well as Maths.
• Records of each session must be kept on the agreed format