Pupil Premium Statement 2023-24

Detail of challenge

Persistent absence for disadvantaged children is higher than for non-disadvantaged pupils. This results in lost learning and gaps in knowledge and understanding.

Access to out of school experiences and co-curricular activities for disadvantaged pupils.

Lack of regular reading opportunities in some home environments needed to increase fluency and comprehension in order to access the entire curriculum.

Lack of regular opportunities and participation in practising times tables and basic number skills at home needed to support pupils with their understanding of other mathematical concepts such as fractions.

Missed learning and socialisation opportunities in school for disadvantaged pupils in early years and Key Stage 1 for Year 3 pupils needed to provide them with secure foundations.

Increased number of children being affected by anxiety and mental health issues with an impact on their wellbeing and ability to engage in their learning. Long waiting lists to receive professional mental health support.

Success Criteria

Reduce the percentage of disadvantaged pupils with persistent absence down so that it is more in line with non-disadvantaged pupils.

At least 60% of disadvantaged children access at least 1 activity club during the course of the year.

All disadvantaged pupils having the opportunity to take part in co-curricular activities including workshops, off-site visits and residential trips.

Pupil gaps in maths are significantly reduced and early maths skills are acquired.

Disadvantaged children have accessed targeted interventions that have allowed for gaps to be addressed and progress made in maths.

Reading fluency, comprehension and a love of reading for disadvantaged pupils has increased, allowing children to have greater access and understanding of the wider curriculum. TAs deliver high quality phonics and reading interventions that have seen pupils make significant progress.

All disadvantaged children in Year 3 have made significant personal progress in their academic and social skills by the end of Year 3.

Children across the whole school have quick access to a professional counsellor placed within the school to ensure that their mental health needs are met or signposted to relevant professionals

Children know that they are able to talk to someone in the school about worries.

Children’s wellbeing improves allowing them to enjoy school and learning fully.

Children have access to quiet, safe spaces providing them for opportunities for self-regulation and reflection.

Evidence that supports this approach

Metacognition and self-regulation strategies can be effective when taught in collaborative groups so that learners can support each other and make their thinking explicit through discussion.Explicit teaching of metacognitive and self-regulatory strategies could therefore encourage such pupils to practise and use these skills more frequently in the future. With explicit teaching and feedback, pupils are more likely to use these strategies independently and habitually, enabling them to manage their own learning and overcome challenges themselves in the future. 

The average impact of metacognition and self-regulation strategies is an additional seven months’ progress over the course of a year. (EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit)

The impact of collaborative approaches on learning is consistently positive, with pupils making an additional 5 months’ progress, on average, over the course of an academic year. Most of the positive approaches include the promotion of talk and interaction between learners.  (EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit)

Peer tutoring approaches have been shown to have a positive impact on learning, with an average positive effect equivalent to approximately five additional months’ progress within one academic year. (EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit)

The high average impact hides a large variation between the different approaches to teaching assistant deployment. Targeted deployment, where teaching assistants are trained to deliver an intervention to small groups or individuals has a higher impact.(EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit)

Fluent reading supports comprehension because pupils’ cognitive resources are freed from focusing on word recognition and can be redirected towards comprehending the text. Rapid provision of support is important, but it is critical to ensure it is the right support. Diagnostic assessment can be used to inform professional judgement about the best next steps. Diagnostic assessment makes teaching more efficient by ensuring that effort is not wasted on rehearsing skills or content that a pupil already knows well. (EEF Guidance reports)

Evidence that supports this approach

Phonics is a ‘high impact’ activity with Teaching Assistant led interventions being ‘moderate’ interventions (EEF Teacher Toolkit); Professional development should be used to raise the quality of practitioners’ knowledge of mathematics, of children’s mathematical development, and of effective mathematical pedagogy.(EEF Guidance Reports)

The key is to ensure that learning in interventions is consistent with, and extends, work inside the classroom and that pupils understand the links between them. (EEF Guidance Reports)

Research has identified remedial and tutorial use of technology as being particularly practical for lower attaining pupils, those with special educational needs or those from disadvantaged backgrounds in providing intensive support to enable them to catch up with their peers. Technology can be particularly useful in personalising learning to match pupils’ individual abilities and needs given the potential for such programmes to adapt and focus on the child’s learning needs. (EEF)

Seize chances to reinforce mathematical vocabulary.Create opportunities for extended discussion of mathematical ideas with children. Teaching builds on what children already know; It is important to assess what children do, and do not, know in order to extend learning for all children. (Interventions are addressing gaps identified through teaching); (EEF Guidance Reports).

Professional development should be used to raise the quality of practitioners’ knowledge of mathematics, of children’s mathematical development, and of effective mathematical pedagogy. (EEF Guidance Reports)

Improving Social and Emotional Learning in Primary Schools reviews the best available research to offer school leaders six practical recommendations to support good SEL for all children. It stresses this is especially important for children from disadvantaged backgrounds and other vulnerable groups, who, on average, have weaker SEL skills at all ages than their better-off classmates. Evidence from the EEF’s Teaching and Learning Toolkit suggests that effective SEL can lead to learning gains of +4 months over the course of a year.

Evidence that supports this approach

Evidence has highlighted that not only is there a negative association between attendance rates and attainment , but that the association is particularly strong compared to all other factors introduced.

(Being Present, the Power of Attendance and Stability for Pupil Premium Pupils; NFER; 2019)

Evidence suggests that by participating in extracurricular activities has positive effects on students’ success. More than

80% of youth participate in extracurricular activities (Fredricks, 2011, p. 379). Being involved in extracurricular activities offers important opportunities for adolescent development (Blomfield & Barber, 2009), such as peer relations, appropriate social conduct, and basic skills for academic

achievement (Metsapelto & Pulkkinen, 2012).

Evidence has highlighted that not only is there a negative association between attendance rates and attainment , but that the association is particularly strong compared to all other factors introduced.

(Being Present, the Power of Attendance and Stability for Pupil Premium Pupils; NFER; 2019)

A large body of research exists that addresses the role of extra-curricular activities on a range of cognitive and noncognitive outcomes.

(An Unequal Playing Field: Extra-Curricular Activities, Soft Skills and Social Mobility; Social Mobility Commission; 2019)

The average impact of successful SEL interventions is an additional four months’ progress over the course of a year. Alongside academic outcomes, SEL interventions have an identifiable and valuable impact on attitudes to learning and social relationships in school. (EEF Toolkit)

A number of studies suggest that improving the self-regulation skills of children in the early years is likely to have a lasting positive impact on later learning at school, and also have a positive impact on wider outcomes such as behaviour and persistence. Many of the pupils in school have missed out on this in EYFS due to Covid 19 and the effects are still being felt. (EEF guidance).