Pupil Premium Financial Support
The pupil premium is additional funding for publicly funded schools in England to raise the attainment of disadvantaged students and close the gap between them and their peers.
“It is for schools to decide how the Pupil Premium, allocated to schools per FSM student, is spent, since they are best placed to assess what additional provision should be made for the individual students within their responsibility.” Source – DfE website
At Lutterworth High School, we have high aspirations and ambitions for our students and we believe that no student should be left behind. We strongly believe that it is not about where you come from but your passion and thirst for knowledge, and your dedication and commitment to learning that make the difference between success and failure.
We are determined to ensure that our students are given every chance to realise their full potential. Pupil premium funding, along with allocations made from the school’s own budget will help ensure this money is spent to maximum effect.
Our pupil premium money has been used to provide a range of additional support for our students and these interventions, along with quality first teaching have started to have a positive impact on students’ attainment and self-belief.
Through targeted interventions we are working hard to eliminate barriers to learning and progress. One of the schools aims is to ensure that ALL groups of students make good progress in order to reach age related expectations as they move through the school.
In place of the current requirements regarding information about pupil premium expenditure, schools are now required to publish their ‘PUPIL PREMIUM STRATEGY.’ This should include:
1. In the previous academic year:
• How the pupil premium allocation was spent
• The impact of the expenditure on eligible and other students
2. The current academic year:
• The amount of the school’s allocation of pupil premium grant
• Details of the main barriers to educational achievement
• How the allocation will be spent to address the barriers and why these approaches were taken
• How the school will measure the impact of the pupil premium
• The date of the next pupil premium strategy review.
To monitor progress on attainment, new measures have been included in the performance tables that will capture the achievement of students covered by the Pupil Premium. At Lutterworth High School, the usual cycle of data collection and the monitoring and tracking of the cohort’s attainment, will be used to inform pupil progress and enable the early identification of need, support and appropriate intervention. Review meetings will take place at each Assessment Focus (between 2-3 times a year) and will include a member of Senior Management, teachers, LSAs and the Pupil Premium Coordinator.
At each Assessment Focus, the school will review the impact of actions taken and will plan for how the funding will be specifically allocated over the next phase. When selecting students for Pupil Premium target groups, the school will look at all students across the school. There are some students who are not eligible for PP who will benefit from these groups if their needs are similar and we believe progress can be made towards individual targets.
Designated staff member in charge: Mrs Natalie Tebbatt
Pupil Premium Coordinator: Mrs Steph Holloway
Nominated governor: Mr Malcom Maguire
The strategies to support PP students are chosen for their effectiveness based on cost and outcomes, many of the strategies used have been successful in previous years, while other have been adopted because of other school’s successes, empirical evidence or research undertaken by staff.
Our £91,610 of Pupil Premium funding in 2018/2019 was used to support these activities.
Eligibility for Free School Meals:
A parent may wish to check their student’s eligibility for Pupil Premium or continued free school meals and Leicestershire County Council has an online system for this.
You will need to enter your name, address, national insurance number or asylum support service number. In addition, you will need to provide your student’s name, date of birth and identify the school they are attending.
Eligibility Criteria
Parents/guardians in England do not have to pay for school meals if they receive any of the following:
• Income Support
• Income-Based Jobseeker’s Allowance
• Income related Employment and Support Allowance
• Support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• Student tax Credit, provided they are not entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual income (as assessed by HM Revenue & Customs) that does not exceed £16,190
• Working tax Credit ‘run-on’ – the payment someone may receive for a further four weeks after they stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit
• Guarantee element of State Pension Credit
Pupil Premium is an important payment for schools and a really good opportunity for eligible parents to get even more support for their students in schools.
We would always encourage parents to contact the Head teacher if financial issues are preventing their children from accessing the opportunities with the school. All enquires will be dealt with confidentially and will be responded to sympathetically whenever possible. Over recent years we have been able to help with the cost of school uniform, transport, music fees and school trips. Please do not hesitate to contact the Head teacher if you would like to have an informal and entirely confidential discussion about ways in which the school can provide support.
We would also like to remind parents that they can apply for free school meals by contacting Leicestershire County Council. The application form can be found here: http://www.leicestershire.gov.uk/education-and-children/social-care-and-supporting-families/free-school-meals
Year 7 Literacy and Numeracy Catch-up Premium Funding
The literacy and numeracy catch-up premium gives us additional funding to support Year 7 students who did not achieve the expected standard (SS<100) in reading and/or maths at the end of key stage 2. Further information on the premium can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/year-7-literacy-and-numeracy-catch-up-premium-guide-for-schools
Catch Up 7 2019 – 2020
We received £8,733 Year 7 catch-up funding for 2019/20. The funding was used to provide additional small group interventions to help these students close the gaps from their KS2 assessments.
Students were identified using their KS2 SATs scores and standardised spelling and reading test results that are completed by all students at the start of the year at Lutterworth High School.
Catch up funding was used to support 43 students in English and 44 in maths. 30 students were in both groups.
The following strategies and interventions were used to secure positive outcomes:
Intensive small group tuition in Maths and English: A base line test was completed at the start of the interventions. Students were re-tested to confirm progress at the end of the courses. This enabled staff to identify gaps in students’ knowledge and skills and to target teaching appropriately.
Courses in English targeted identified weaknesses in reading, revisiting phonics for some students as well as spelling, grammar and punctuation to improve basic knowledge and understanding of key literary concepts.
Courses in maths concentrated on basic number skills as well as content transferable to other areas in the curriculum, such as reading scales and drawing graphs.
Students with scaled scores between 80 and 90 received additional intervention and support in key areas. In maths they followed the Passport to Maths Scheme with an HLTA as well as having a personal log-in to use outside of school. In English, these students were taught in very small groups with input from a HLTA specially trained to deliver a recognised phonics package, suitable for the age of the students.
Additionally, LSAs and HLTAs worked on a one-to one basis with a number of students to support their transition from KS2 to KS3.
Beyond the interventions we also:
Asked them to attend homework clubs that are targeted at low attaining students both at lunchtime and after school.
Meet with primary schools in the term before enrolment and identify students likely to be below SS100, where appropriate, these students then have an enhanced transition tailored to meet individual need.
Offer places on summer school to all Year 6 students who are due to start with us in Year 7. This runs for one week and the programme’s key focus is on both numeracy and literacy. Students here are targeted in the same way as for enhanced transition.
Worked closely with families of the students targeted for catch up 7 through regular communication.
Outcomes showed that:
In English 31 of the 43 students improved their reading ages by more than would have been expected between the two testing points. Ten students did not make any improvement and two students achieved the same score. Whilst this was generally pleasing and showed good impact from the intervention, we must also consider that 18 of these students still have a reading age below 10 years old. These students will therefore struggle to access the general KS3 curriculum materials used at LHS. Twelve of these 18 students have a diagnosed SEND and will continue to access additional support to meet their needs. It will be appropriate to monitor the others and test as appropriate for underlying, undiagnosed SEND’s. These students will be prioritised for further intervention and will continued to be offered support beyond the scope of the Catch Up 7 Programme.
In Numeracy, the students were tested initially at the start of the intervention, and have since had a second wave of testing in late November. The table below shows the progress of students in this time:
Sep 19 Dec 19
% ever passed (Scaled 99 or under) 47.5 61.9
% ever passed (Scaled 95 or under) 28 46.2
As the table shows, there has already been significant initial progress in terms of success between the two tests, with a 14.4% increase in students with 99 or below passing, and an 18.2% increase in successes with the 95 and under cohort. There will be further half-termly assessments through the year to further measure these improvements.