COVID-19 Catch Up

Covid-19 ‘Catch up’ Premium

In June, a £1 billion fund for education was announced by the government.  Further guidance has now been released (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-catch-up-premium) showing that the money is split between a catch-up premium and a national tutoring scheme.

The catch-up premium is funded on a per pupil basis at £80 per pupil. This will be based on the previous year’s census and will not include Nursery numbers. We estimate that Whitehouse Primary will receive approximately £20,000 this academic year and £8,720 for the next academic year.

Each school will utilise the funding and decide on what is best to support their pupils. As a resource for school, the Education Endowment Foundation has published a support guide for schools with evidence-based approaches to catch up for all students.

There are two broad aims for “catch up” at Whitehouse:

• Attainment outcomes at end of 2020-21 for all year groups will be at least in line with those at the end of 2019-20.
• The mental health needs of pupils are met and supported by the school.

At Whitehouse, this money will be used in order to provide:

• Curriculum resources and materials that support “catch up” and the mental health of pupils.
• Additional support sessions to develop the outcomes of children who have been identified as needing “catch up” in their learning.
• Therapeutic interventions, including wellbeing programmes and therapy ponies.

Catch Up at Whitehouse is based on the tiered approach as recommended by EEF guide to supporting schools.

(For all children)

• Working through well sequenced, adapted and purposeful schemes of learning. For example, our curriculum during the Autumn term has been adapted to focus on gaps in learning and the consolidation of basic skills in cross-curricular lessons. In maths, we have been able to use catch up premium to purchase the MyMaths Scheme as an additional scheme of learning, which facilitates both in school and remote learning (when needed). 
• Focus on consolidation of basic skills. The core skills which enable successful learning will require increased curriculum time across all year groups. These include: handwriting, spelling of high frequency words, basic sentence punctuation, times tables recall, basic addition & subtraction fact recall and reading skills relevant to age. These skills are being promoted across subjects.
• Additional lesson time on core teaching. Reading, writing and maths teaching will require 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 may be 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.
• Assessment of learning and of basic skills to identify major gaps. Following a baseline assessment and working formatively, teachers will work to identify gaps in learning and adapt teaching accordingly.
• Time spent on mental health, wellbeing and social skills development. This will be at the core of all catch up work as many children will have not been in formal school setting for a number of months.

 (For some children)

• Additional support and focus on basic core skills. Supported by additional basic skills sessions utilising catch up premium – dependent on need as identified through ongoing assessment. Registered to take part in Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) programme for reception children to start in Spring 2021.
• Additional time to practice basic skills. This again will be dependent on need of children in order to re-establish good progress in the essentials (phonics and reading, increasing vocabulary, grammar, writing and mathematics) and there will be flexibility on timetables to allow this.

Catch up at Whitehouse IS NOT:

• Cramming missed learning
• Pressuring children and families into rapid learning
• Teachers focussed on intensive sessions for missed objectives
• Teachers focussed on intensive and more frequent  assessment activities