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In 2020 the government announced £1 billion of funding to support children and young people to catch up lost time after school closure. This is especially important for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged backgrounds. This funding includes a one-off universal £650 million catch up premium for the 2020 to 2021 academic year.Children and young people across the country have experienced unprecedented disruption to their education as a result of coronavirus (COVID-19). Those from the most vulnerable and disadvantaged backgrounds will be among those hardest hit. The aggregate impact of lost time in education will be substantial, and the scale of our response must match the scale of the challenge.
Schools’ allocations will be calculated on a per pupil basis, providing each mainstream school with a total of £80 for each pupil in years reception through to 11.
As the catch-up premium has been designed to mitigate the effects of the unique disruption caused by coronavirus (COVID-19), the grant will only be available for the 2020 to 2021 academic year. It will not be added to schools’ baselines in calculating future years’ funding allocations.
Currently, the premium is worth £12,160 (based on £80 per pupil) and is to to ensure that Sandhurst Primary has the support they need to help all pupils make up for lost teaching time.
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Schools should use this funding for specific activities to support their pupils to catch up for lost teaching over the previous months, in line with the guidance on curriculum expectations for the next academic year.Schools have the flexibility to spend their funding in the best way for their cohort and circumstances.
To support schools to make the best use of this funding, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has published a coronavirus (COVID-19) support guide for schools with evidence-based approaches to catch up for all students. Schools should use this document to help them direct their additional funding in the most effective way.
The EEF advises the following:
Teaching and whole school strategies
- Supporting great teaching
- Pupil assessment and feedback
- Transition support
Targeted approaches
- One to one and small group tuition
- Intervention programmes
- Extended school time
Wider strategies
- Supporting parent and carers
- Access to technology
- Summer support
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| Maths | Specific content has been missed, leading to gaps in learning and stalled sequencing of journeys. Children still have an appetite for maths and lockdown has not affected their attitudes however they are quite simply, ‘behind’.
Recall of basic skills has suffered – children are not able to recall addition facts, times tables and have forgotten once taught calculation strategies. This is reflected in arithmetic assessments. |
| Writing | Children haven’t necessarily missed ‘units’ of learning in the same way as Maths, however they have lost essential practising of writing skills. Grammar, punctuation and spelling in KS2 and phonological awareness in KS1 specific have suffered, leading to lack of fluency in writing. Those who have maintained writing throughout lockdown are less affected, however those who evidently didn’t write much have had to work additionally hard on writing stamina and improving their motivation due to the lack of fluency in their ability to write. |
| Reading | Children accessed reading during lockdown more than any other subject. This is something that was more accessible for families and required less teacher input. However, children are less fluent in their reading and the gap between those children that read widely and those children who don’t is now increasingly wide. The bottom 20% of readers have been disproportionately affected. A lack of reading matter at an appropriate level has also meant that some children have not extended their reading skills. |
| Non-Core | There are now significant gaps in knowledge – whole units of work have not been taught meaning that children are less able to access pre-requisite knowledge when learning something new and they are less likely to make connections between concepts and themes throughout the curriculum. Children have also missed out on the curriculum experiences e.g. trips, visitors and powerful curriculum moments. |
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|  The headings below are grouped into the categories outlined in the Education Endowment Foundation’s coronavirus support guide for schools | ||||
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| Desired outcome | Chosen approach and anticipated cost | Impact (once reviewed) | Staff lead | Review date? |
| Supporting great teaching:
The foundation subject will be planned with increasing detail and consideration for how pre-requisite knowledge will be taught alongside new learning so that knowledge gaps can be reduced. Despite the limitations placed on schools in terms of physical space and the sharing of these by bubbles, there needs to be specific small group learning spaces for all bubbles to access safely. |
Additional time for teachers to research and plan non-core subjects. Release time and additional cover will be required to facilitate the additional PPA.
(£1000) Redevelop the use of the library and IT rooms to enable small group teaching for identified groups. (£685) (65) Develop the outside area for better outside learning areas for small group teaching (1746) |
Having the extra rooms as teaching spaces has meant better opportunities for small group work. Having student teachers in school meant that all groups had more focussed teaching time.
Subject leaders are now more informed and have been better able to assess the impact of their subject across the school. |
LR and LB
AN and LB |
Feb 21
Dec 20 |
| Teaching assessment and feedback
Teachers have a very clear understanding of what gaps in learning remain and use this to inform assessments of learning that are aligned with standardised norms, giving a greater degree in confidence and accuracy of assessments. |
Purchase and implement updated Rising Stars National Test-style Standardised Assessments. Complete termly tests and record assessments on MARK to identify gaps.
(£500) |
Using these tests and CATS assessments has enabled a close analysis of gaps.
Focus has now moved to closing these gaps with precision teaching. |
AN | July 21 |
| Transition support
Children who are joining school from different settings or who are beginning their schooling at Sandhurst have an opportunity to become familiar and confident with the setting before they arrive. |
Tour of Sandhurst Primary School is arranged and shared with all new-starters. Additional time is made to cover the teacher so that they can have a virtual meeting with their new starter. Stay and play sessions at the beginning of the school year, so that each child is confident in joining our school. Purchase of School Cloud Parents evening software to enable virtual meetings with all families.
(£300) |
School has increased numbers to 160 children. The new intake for EYFS was extremely smooth despite a lack of ability to complete summer transitions from nurseries.
Virtual parent evenings have been a success and the school aims to offer a hybrid approach going forwards to recognise the difficulty that some parents have in getting to school during working hours. |
LR and AN | Ongoing |
| Total budgeted cost  | £ 4,296 | |||
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| Desired outcome | Chosen action/approach | Impact (once reviewed) | Staff lead | Review date? |
| 1-to-1 and small group support
Accelerated Reader will be purchased to enable all children in school to have focussed support and identified specific targets for reading. Children will be able to read appropriate texts as a result of identifying reading ages. With this targeted support, they will become better readers and dips in reading attainment will be negated. |
Purchase of Accelerated Reader to support the delivery of our reading fluency project over the next two years. Staff within phases are trained and they are able to deliver the intervention confidently (inclusive of entry and exit data). (£7555) | All children from Y2 now have access to Accelerated Reader. The library has been updated with the scheme to offer ease of accessing books. Training of all staff is now completed. Children are enjoying the new approach and are beginning to make good progress in reading. | AN | Feb 21
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| Intervention programme
An appropriate reading intervention, Barrington Stokes books, supports those identified children in reinforcing their understanding of reading and comprehension. |
Additional books (Barrington Stokes) purchased to be purchased for intervention across phases and for identified vulnerable groups.
(£450) |
Identified children are now confidently choosing and reading these books. | AN | July 21 |
| Total budgeted cost  | £8,005 | |||
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| Desired outcome | Chosen action/approach | Impact (once reviewed) | Staff lead | Review date? |
| Supporting parents and carers
Children will have greater opportunities to access learning at home. Home-learning opportunities will not always require parents to engage with the activities, affording the children greater independence and increasing the likelihood that parents can sustain home-learning. |
Additional online learning resources will be purchased, such as White Rose Maths, TT Rockstars and Maths Shed to support children’s mathematics at home. Likewise, Spelling Shed will be purchased so that children can practise spellings at home.
£650 Home learning paper-based packs are prepared using White Rose and Classroom Secrets, printed and ready to distribute for identified children. Stationery packs are to be purchased and set aside for vulnerable children to take home when home-learning occurs. £700 |
This has enabled children to access learning both at home and in school. Individual Covid cases in children has also meant that work can be accessed from home.
In a development from this, in September 2021 the school purchased ‘Sum Dog’ for regular home learning opportunities. |
AN
JP/LR2 |
Feb 21
Feb 21 |
| Access to technology
During the catch-up extended school provision, children can access additional devices so that they can rotate through discrete teaching, reading fluency and independent online activities.
All staff have laptops that are equipped with webcams and allow them to access school-based resources from home. Teachers facilitate effective home-learning with increased capacity to share resources and communicate learning to children. |
Our suite of 32 laptops for the children in school will be adapted by our IT technician so that they can be used remotely. Vulnerable families will then be allocated the use of these if remote learning is required.
(2 extra days) £320 Purchase 7 Dell Laptops and an extra IAWB for the ICT room. This will enable the existing stock of laptops to be allocated to teaching assistants and office staff so that all are prepared and ready for remote learning. A new IAWB in the ICT room will enable an extra teaching space for teaching smaller bubble groups £2076 £3500 |
This enabled all children to access remote learning from home during periods of whole school lockdown and in individual cases of Covid. Now children are mostly in school, these laptops have been shared around the school to enable children to access Accelerated Reader quizzes and other support programmes on a 1:1 whilst freeing up the class set for whole class teaching of IT. | MH
AN |
FEB 21
FEB 21 |
| Summer Support
NA |
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| Total budgeted cost  | £ 7,246 | |||
| Cost paid through Covid Catch-Up  | £12,160 | |||
| Cost paid through charitable donations  | £1,746 | |||
| Cost paid through school budget  | £5,641 | |||
| 19,547 | ||||
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