Past Pupil Premium

April 2014 – April 2015

The Pupil Premium Grant is targeted at low-income homes, with the vast majority of children in receipt of the grant receiving free school meals (though PPG also includes other children such as those that are looked after). During this academic year, 2014-15, the premium has increased to £1300 per pupil.

Ofsted Nov 2012 noted ‘Pupils who are known to be eligible for the pupil premium often make good progress towards the standards expected for their age. This is because the money to support their learning is allocated very precisely to promote their equality of opportunity’. The 2014 results also reflect this pattern: e.g.

1. Average point scores at KS1 of pupil premium pupils in combined all subjects, reading and mathematics was above the national average.
2. The percentage of pupils achieving L4+ in year six in combined maths, reading and writing, mathematics, reading and writing were above the national average for similar pupils. Only in the grammar test were they below. In reading and in mathematics the percentage of pupil premium children gaining L4+ in mathematics and reading was higher than none non pupil premium children.
3. The percentage of pupil premium pupils gaining L5 in Year six in all areas, except writing, was at or above the national average for such pupils. Average point scores in all areas in Y6 tests were also above national averages for pupil premium pupils.
4. The percentage of pupil premium Y6 pupils making expected progress during their time in KS2 in all three core areas is above the national for similar pupils.
5. Children receiving free school meals (FSM) often make better progress than other sub groups, though the school recognises that not all pupils who receive FSM will be socially disadvantaged. There is a focus on behaviour management of a few pupils causing concerns and, as a result, the school ‘gives good support to those few pupils who have problems managing their anger or emotions and… lessons are never disrupted’ (Ofsted 2012).

 During April 2014- April 2015 the school is using a range of provision to support pupils receiving pupil premium such as:

1. 1:1 support in core skills;
2. Help pay elements of the costs of school trips, kids club etc. to enable all pupils to access arrange of provision; 
3. Group support for some Y5 and Y6 pupils by teachers released from class;
4. Training all Teacher Assistants (TA) in phonic phases and ensuring they can lead phonic group teaching;
5. Two trained TA supports pupils with social and emotional difficulties;
6. Staff training to support consistency of approach in teaching and behaviour management; 
   Regular staff training through staff meeting time focusing on:

• Raising underachievement in girls maths; 
• SPaG
• Formative assessment strategies within the lesson
• Safer internet training
• Calculation policy training
• Writing moderation
• Intervention planning
• Assessment without levels
• Phonics
  In addition, individual staff have attended training in the following areas:
• Team Teach – how many?
• Raising expectations in EYFS
• Safeguarding and CP
• EYFS outdoor learning
• WRAP
• Epipen/asthma/diabetes
• EYFS baseline
• NQT induction

7. Developing team work and work skills in Y5 and Y6 by signing on to an activity based support programme called ‘Skillforce’ during the academic year 2013-14;
8. Tracking the progress of relevant pupils and putting in support where required; 
9. Funding a parent support advisor where needed; and
10. Funding extra TAs in Y4 classes from September as high level of need.

Impact 

1. Support was received for 0.3 of the school timetable. This constituted one full day and morning each week. Some children attended on a weekly basis for specific needs but others attended to close gaps in their learning. Impact was variable as for the morning sessions children were removed from quality first teaching and while gaps were closed in some aspects of their learning they also created them as they missed key learning opportunities. The use of 1:1 tuition helped reduce teacher pupil ratios.
2. All pupils eligible for pupil premium had school trips and theatre productions in school subsidised from funds, including the year 6 residential to Cober Hill.
3. From January, cover was provided one afternoon per week to free up the Y6 teachers to take out booster sessions. One hour was spent boosting level 3 to level 4 (maths and reading) and the other hour was used securing level 4 (maths and reading) and pushing into level 6. Groups were flexible and catered to the children’s individual needs. Some children were regular attenders whereas others dropped in if it was suitable to a particular gap in their learning.

Impact:

92% achieved a level 4 or above in reading 

47% achieved a level 5 in reading

81% achieved a level 4 in maths

32% achieved a level 5 in maths (3% achieved level 6) 

4. All teaching assistants were trained in delivering phonics groups. Application of spelling rules and phonics improved in writing as children were encouraged to apply their learning in all opportunities to write. Smaller group work enabled children to be supported in a lower ratio group to close the gap and often the class teacher could be released to work with the children that needed the most support/intervention. Extra training meant that children could be encouraged to use key skills including blending in reading. Children’s work was monitored through book scrutinies that showed progress being made.
5. ELSA – Continue to timetable 1 ELSA TA 0.3 of timetable and a newly qualified ELSA TA 0.2. Impact has been that 85% of the children who attended ELSA sessions scored higher for issues including self-esteem, security and affiliation. Only one child scored a lower grade in one of these areas. This will be a continued provision next year with 1 TA to lead 0.4 of the timetable and 1 TA 0.2 of the timetable. This resource is used at other times and not just in this timetabled provision for example supporting children with playtimes and any other issues that may appear that require short intervention.
6. Teaching and behaviour management 

Much work has been done on moderating writing, ensuring greater accuracy of levelling. Where data analysis showed underachievement of girls in maths, training was provided to address this. Recent data shows that this is no longer an issue.

Data also showed areas in EYFS where school data was behind National data. Staff attended training to raise expectation in writing and maths. The impact of this can be seen in EYFS data for 2015.
Nearly all teachers and TAs have been trained in Team Teach, this has improved de-escalation of challenging behaviour.

7. Skillforce –Working with Skillforce provided opportunities to develop specific values, including Resilience, Courage, Dedication, Discipline, Respect, Integrity and Selflessness.  Children reflected on the impact of the programme themselves.

• "Skillforce has given me the courage to try different things"
• "It has made me work more as a team"
• "It has given me lots of self-belief and confidence towards my learning"
• "Skillforce has given me confidence when doing new things"
• "I think Skillforce has helped me to be resilient. I know that there is not just one leader, but lots of leaders with different abilities"
• "Skillforce helped me work in a team and to try different stuff "
• "Skillforce has developed me as a person, eg. teamwork, learning to work with people I don’t get on with and giving me courage"
• "It has given me resilience and courage to do new things"
• "Skillforce has taught me that teamwork will always be important"
• "Skillforce has taught me to be more selfless"
• "Skillforce has made me happier about my work. It has built up my team work and resilience. I like taking part in the activities "
• "Skillforce has taught me many different skills that I will need for the future. I am very grateful"

Teachers also reported an increase in teamwork and self discipline.

8. All teachers were involved in the transfer between data systems from SIMs to Eazmag. This meant that teachers were more responsible for their data and used it to inform where support was needed in terms of intervention. Teachers were more confident with data, knew the gaps of the children in their class/cohort well and used the new system to identify gaps in learning to fill either with quality first teaching in the classroom or with an intervention. Teachers were also using high quality intervention techniques in group work within a lesson. All interventions followed a half term cycle and identified a clear focus and starting point and was lead by HLTA’s/TA’s or class teachers. Assessing progress from the intervention needed to be more rigorous, although teachers reported improvements in confidence and identified small steps of progress this was not always evident in whole school data that was scrutinised. Plans in place for next year’s interventions not to take place in quality first teaching time. Introducing pre-school interventions with clear pre and post testing procedures in place to show progress. The improved use of data by teachers has sharpened the focus of intervention, highlighting exactly which children require additional support.
9. No PSA has been appointed. Plans are to appoint a learning mentor – January 2016
10. Year 4 is an identified year group with a high percentage of pupil premium and special needs children and also a lot of children with other family issues that impact on school life. 32% of the children eligible for pupil premium funding are also on the SEND register. Money has been spent this year ensuring that the ratios of adults to children are lower particularly for those who fall into more than one vulnerable group category. Having extra TA’s has meant that guided interventions in small groups could take place. Pre-reading groups have been successful in allowing children to have more time to become familiar with a text so they have a good understanding going into their lessons. Guided writing has also been a feature, this has worked particularly well when the teacher has been able to deliver to a small group leaving the TA to support other children. As some of these families have other issues that impact on learning, extra TA’s have also been used to support pupil premium children emotionally offering 1:1 support and time to talk and sometimes the children have attended ELSA sessions for further support. Where this has not been successful is when support has been needed elsewhere in school because of issues surrounding staff illness that leads to difficulty with cover arrangements.