Pupil Premium & Catch-up Fund (Year 7)

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 peers from wealthier backgrounds by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the students who need it most. Pupil Premium is allocated to schools per FSM student in the last 6 years (‘Ever 6’), and Looked After Children.

Research has shown that pupils who have been on, or are on, Free School Meals do not attain as highly as other children in school. The government provides this grant so that we can commission and allocate additional support to ensure that they do. The support can be in a short burst or over a long period of time and can take many forms which are described in detail below. The decision to offer a particular type of support must always be firmly rooted in evidence-based research and have an impact. It can also be in the form of additional resources, enrichment or access to opportunities that enhance the learning experience or foster aspiration.

St Augustine’s currently has a Pupil Premium figure above national average, although it is difficult at times to target specifically PP students separately due to other contextual deprivation indicators. Therefore, we target many interventions following extensive data analysis through our own school tracking systems. We monitor Pupil Premium students rigorously and separately so that we can ensure that these selected students make expected progress and an even higher percentage making more than expected progress. This is supported by our data collections in order to ensure that any historical under-achievement is tackled.

Year 7 Catch up fund

For 2017-18, Year 7 Catch Up Funding increased since 2016-17 from £10,382 to £12,486. St Augustine’s targeted students who arrived in Year 7 from primary school who were not “school ready”, meaning the students has scored below 100 for Reading and Maths. The Year 7 Catch Up Funding was spent on providing three interventions which are outlined below:

• Creation of G7 Class – In Year 7, an additional form group called G7 has been created in order to offer some of our Year 7 students a much more bespoke curriculum. These students are predominately following a main stream curriculum , but they have more specialised teaching to ensure that appropriate and effective differentiation is in place to both meet the students individual needs and also support them with becoming ‘school ready.’
• Booster Classes – There are booster classes created in Year 7 for English, Maths and Science. These classes run alongside normal curriculum lessons but are much smaller in size. The classes continue to be taught by subject specialists, with a focus on bridging the gap between key stage 2 and Year 7 in terms of knowledge, skills and understanding.
• LSA support – We also ensure that our LSAs are targeting our identified students in lessons, especially if they are EAL learners.

Year 7 Catch Up Fund 2018-19

In addition to the 3 interventions that we have put in place for 2017-18, during this academic year, we will also be targeting some of our identified students for homework club and monitoring the continued progress the students make specifically with their reading through the Year 8 Lexi Literacy Programme.

A greater level of tracking of students individual progress levels during each data collection point will also be evaluated, especially in English and Maths, in order to show where intervention and support has been effective. All Teaching Staff will also be made aware of the students identified as not ‘school ready’ so that the individual class teacher can also plan more specific differentiated materials and resources, or adapt their style of teaching/delivery, to ensure greater progress is made.