The Pupil Premium Grant is additional funding allocated to schools to help support disadvantaged pupils, closing the attainment gap between them and their peers. At Our Lady Catholic Primary, Pupil Premium is funding allocated to pupils who are currently children looked after (CLA), eligible for free school meals and who have been eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years. This equates to 6% (15 children) of our current school population (though this figure could change during the course of the year).

PRINCIPLES:

All members of staff and governors accept responsibility for ‘socially disadvantaged’ pupils and are committed to meeting their pastoral, social and academic needs within a caring environment. As with every child in our care, a child who is considered to be ‘socially disadvantaged’ is valued, respected and entitled to develop his/her full potential, irrespective of need.

BACKGROUND:

The Pupil Premium targets extra funding for pupils from deprived backgrounds. Research shows these pupils underachieve compared to their non-deprived peers. The premium is provided in order to support these pupils to reach their potential. The Government have used pupils entitled to free school meals, children of service personnel and children looked after as an indicator for deprivation and have deployed a fixed amount of money to schools per pupil, based upon the number registered for Free School Meals (FSM.) The Government have not dictated to schools how to spend this money, but are clear that schools will need to employ strategies that they know will support these pupils to increase their attainment and narrow the gap.

PROVISION:

In order to meet the above requirements, the Governing Board of Our Lady Catholic Primary will ensure that provision is made which secures the teaching and learning opportunities that meet the needs of all pupils. As part of the additional provision made for pupils who belong to the vulnerable groups, the Governors of the school will ensure that the needs of socially disadvantaged pupils are adequately addressed. We have raised staff awareness to ensure learning is personalised and provision is monitored through work scrutiny, data analysis and lesson observations. Pupil progress meetings identify any year group or class that is underachieving and any intervention needs are addressed.

“What you do on a daily basis as a teacher impacts directly on the life chances of the students in front of you.”

Alistair Smith, High Performers (2011)

PUPIL PREMIUM CHILDREN WHO ARE BELOW EXPECTATIONS:

We identify every child who is receipt of the Pupil Premium Grant and target those who need most help. Each teacher is made aware of the Pupil Premium children in their class and are required to put support in place to help progress them to ‘expected’ age related expectations or better in the relevant areas. We will ensure that interventions are targeted at specific children and tailored to meet their needs.

ACADEMICALLY MORE ABLE (AMA) PUPIL PREMIUM CHILDREN:

We will target these pupils carefully and where possible, provide specific teaching interventions to ensure they achieve as well as AMA pupils who are not in receipt of the Pupil Premium Grant.

ALL PUPILS:

We will work hard to ensure all our teachers teach to the highest level possible and to expect all children to attain as highly as they can across the curriculum. We seek to create a ‘growth mindset’ culture at Our Lady and implement assessment for learning practices which enable all pupils, including those in receipt of the Pupil Premium Grant, to make the best possible progress.

Our aim is to minimise as many of the barriers to learning as we can for our children. Financial constraints can mean that some of the pupils in our school community do not necessarily experience the economic and cultural advantages in their home life experiences that many other children are exposed to. For example, evidence shows that rich life experiences outside of school can positively impact on the quality, range and depth of vocabulary and language that children acquire and their knowledge of the world which enables them to make good progress with their reading and writing in school. Social and culturally rich experiences outside of school help to support children’s development in school.

Pupil Premium resources are used in a variety of ways in our school to target specific support for children and to try to provide additional social, cultural and learning experiences, thus enriching the life of the school for all. We aim to ensure that children from the most economically disadvantaged backgrounds are supported to make as much progress as possible - thereby reaching their full potential. We are determined to ensure that the Pupil Premium Grant is used to have maximum impact. We do this by enriching the provision available and improving the quality of teaching and learning across the school. There are many ways in which we aim to improve outcomes for disadvantaged children. These include :

QUALITY FIRST TEACHING:

Evidence from a range of sources indicates that quality first teaching in the classroom has the most significant impact on raising attainment. We have used evidence, in particular from the Sutton Trust, the Teaching Schools Council and Ofsted, to identify the significance of quality first teaching in the classroom and wish to make clear to all stakeholders how important this is.

‘Poor teaching has a greater impact on disadvantaged pupils than their peers. This is because disadvantaged pupils often don’t have the same levels of support to compensate for the weak teaching. Therefore, investment in quality first teaching should not be overlooked.’

Teaching Schools Council: Effective pupil premium reviews (May 2016)

Our aim throughout 2018/19 is to make daily provision in class even better at matching the needs of pupils eligible for the Pupil Premium Grant, both academically, socially and emotionally. For this reason, we are directing a substantial proportion of our funding to support the continuous development of ‘quality first teaching’ strategies that facilitate the best learning for the pupils at our school.

We achieve quality first teaching by :

• Implementing a rigorous termly programme of school based professional development, monitoring and assessment linked to our school priorities.
• Partnership work with other schools working within both the Welwyn Hatfield District and Hertfordshire County itself, to provide high quality training and CPD for all our teachers. We also seek to share excellent practice and build STEM capital with a particular focus on disadvantaged pupils.
• Development of Middle Managers through mentoring by our leadership team, including funding to enable some middle leaders to attend leadership courses from quality providers.
• Analysis of the progress and attainment rates of Pupil Premium children reported to the Governing Body on a termly basis.
• Provision planning based on both internal and external data analyses (including Analyse School Performance and the IDSR).
• Evaluating how we plan interventions for every child in receipt of the Pupil Premium Grant across the school. Low, middle and higher attaining Pupil Premium pupils are identified prior to termly progress meetings. Teachers provide specific information about pupils, particularly those in low and middle attaining groups (including barriers to learning, interventions used and the impact to date). Each class teacher discusses each Pupil Premium child with the leadership team and actions and a support strategy is agreed, which will help to raise the progress and attainment rates of those pupils.

LEARNING CULTURE OF THE SCHOOL:

At. Our Lady Catholic Primary School, we have a strong focus on developing a school learning culture based around developing a ‘growth mindset’. We encourage pupils to be active partners in accessing learning and the curriculum with increasing confidence. The use of Assessment for Learning (AfL) strategies, including talk partners, ensures that all pupils engage dynamically with each other, helping to promote inclusion and social cohesion within the school setting.

The school uses teaching and learning approaches recognised through research carried out by The Educational Endowment Foundation and the Sutton Trust and cost efficient methods of impacting on progress and achievement of disadvantaged pupils to be successful. They include:

• AfL feedback enabling pupils to improve and to develop ownership over their learning.
• Metacognition and self-regulation – pupils are taught learning and behaviour dispositions to help them think explicitly about their own learning behaviours and about self-motivation.
• Mastery Learning – As a team, we are continually developing our approaches to teaching the National Curriculum, particularly with regards to Maths and English, to embed an understanding of key concepts and knowledge before moving to new learning.
• Peer learning and assessment – Our pupils engage with each other in pairs and small groups to offer advice and support within their classes and cross-age peer reading where older pupils tutor younger ‘Reading Buddies’.
• Develop oral language interactions (i.e. the use of structured questioning to develop reading comprehension).
• Teaching reading comprehension in the main lesson by focusing on text interrogation - which helps to move large numbers of pupils on with their reading within the context of the lesson.

In addition the school invests in :

• Group teaching and 1-1 tuition – The leadership team and a specialist Speech and Language therapist all provide high quality teaching to move pupils rapidly on with their learning or to teach challenging topics or skills. Though more expensive, this has proved to be a highly effective strategy and is planned carefully in conjunction with the class teachers to support and build on class learning.

ENRICHING THE CURRICULUM:

At Our Lady, disadvantaged pupils are specifically targeted to take up after school enrichment opportunities. We promote creativity across the curriculum with a range of initiatives and partnerships to help us achieve this.

SPORTS PROVISION:

The school provides high quality P.E. and sports provision, including a number of clubs which promote fitness, good health and enjoyment of sport and exercise. Throughout the year, children from Years 2 to 4 take part in swimming lessons at Hatfield Swim Centre.

EDUCATIONAL VISITS:

We consider it particularly important to provide enrichment opportunities for families who may be less able to access them outside of school. We seek to enhance and enrich our curriculum by experiencing study opportunities outside of the classroom as regularly as we can. Every year group participates in a school trip every term. We believe this will:

• Develop each child’s knowledge, skills and understanding of the wider world outside school and home.
• Emphasise links between various areas of the curriculum, and to put into practice skills learnt in the classroom.
• In Year 6, the children also embark on a 5-day residential visit to the Isle of Wight, which has a major geographical focus. We ensure that all children take part in this exciting adventure and subsidise the cost of the trip for families.

ENSURING OUTSTANDING ATTENDANCE:

We fully understand that good attendance is vital to helping disadvantaged pupils achieve. We implement a raft of measures to support our school community and highlight good attendance and punctuality with all our pupils, enabling the school to maintain good levels of attendance each year. 

PUPIL LEADERSHIP:

Pupil leadership is developed across school life with a range of different councils/teams including:

• Head Boy and Head Girl (and Deputies)
• School Council
• Mini Vinnies
• House Captains
• Sports Leaders
• Classroom Monitors
• Playground Buddies

ENGAGING WITH PARENTS AND CARERS:

We are continuing to increase parental support and engagement this year. We have extended and improved the availability of a range of learning opportunities for parents/carers (including a range of parental workshops that have taken part throughout the year). We will also continue to develop parent/carer voice to gain their views on the school through termly questionnaires and the Parent View website. This will enable us to consult with parents over a range of issues and help us to improve our partnership by directly responding to issues raised. We are very lucky to also have a well-organised PTA at our school, who arrange a number of events throughout the year to promote inclusion and community cohesion and to help raise funds for the pupils.

MEASURING THE IMPACT OF THE PUPIL PREMIUM GRANT:

We constantly monitor the impact of Pupil Premium spending by tracking the progress and attainment rates of pupils on a termly basis and reporting this information to governors, who scrutinise the information at governors meetings. We also discuss the impact of our Pupil Premium spending strategy as part of the governors’ finance meetings each term.