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St Peter’s Catholic Primary School Covid19 Catch-Up Funding 2020-21
The Education Endowment Foundation has provided research based strategies on how best to support vulnerable pupils. This guidance has been the starting point for our catch-up strategy. |
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Total Covid Catch-up Grant Received |
£16,000 |
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Estimated cost of Catch-up Strategy |
£16,000 |
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Teaching and whole-school strategies |
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Supporting great teaching |
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Great teaching is the most important lever schools have to improve outcomes for their pupils. Ensuring every teacher is supported is essential to achieving the best outcomes for pupils. Providing opportunities for professional development—for example, to support curriculum planning or focused training on the effective use of technology—is likely to be valuable. Almost all schools will also have made significant adjustments to organisational and logistical aspects of school life. Ensuring teachers have training and support to adjust to these changes is likely to improve the quality of teaching. Early career teachers, who may have had opportunities to develop their practice curtailed by school closures, are particularly likely to benefit from additional mentoring and support. |
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Pupil assessment and feedback |
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Assessment can help teachers determine how to most effectively support their pupils. Every pupil will have been affected differently by Covid-19. Setting aside time to enable teachers to assess pupils’ wellbeing and learning needs is likely to make it easier for teachers and other school staff to provide effective support. For example, subject-specific assessments might be used to identify particular areas where pupils have forgotten or misunderstood key concepts, to ensure that new material being covered builds on secure foundations. Standardised assessments in literacy or numeracy might be used to identify pupils who would benefit from additional catch-up support. Providing pupils with high-quality feedback, building on accurate assessment, is likely to be a particularly promising approach. |
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Transition support |
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All pupils will need support to transition back to school. However, there are particular challenges for pupils starting a new school after the disruptions caused by Covid-19. Planning and providing transition support, such as running dedicated transition events—either online or face-to-face, as restrictions allow—is likely to be an effective way to prepare pupils. Transition events might focus on sharing information about school with children and their families or running activities designed to make pupils feel comfortable in their new school, for example by introducing pupils to their new teachers and classmates. Additional transition support might include using assessment to identify areas where pupils are likely to require additional support or creating opportunities for teachers to share information about pupils’ strengths and areas for development with colleagues, including between primary and secondary schools where possible. |
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Targeted Support |
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One to one and small group tuition |
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There is extensive evidence supporting the impact of high quality one to one and small group tuition as a catch-up strategy. To be most effective, creating a three-way relationship between tutor, teacher and pupils is essential, ensuring that tuition is guided by the school, linked to the curriculum and focused on the areas where pupils would most benefit from additional practice or feedback. As a rule of thumb, the smaller the group the better. However, both small group and one to one tuition can be effective catchup approaches. Tuition delivered by qualified teachers is likely to have the highest impact. However, tuition delivered by tutors, teaching assistants, or trained volunteers can also be effective. Where tuition is delivered by teaching assistants or volunteers, providing training linked to specific content and approaches is beneficial. |
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Intervention programmes |
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In order to support pupils who have fallen behind furthest, structured interventions, which may also be delivered one to one or in small groups, are likely to be necessary. A particular focus for interventions is likely to be on literacy and numeracy. For example, there is extensive evidence showing the long-term negative impact of beginning secondary school without secure literacy skills. Programmes are likely to have the greatest impact where they meet a specific need, such as oral language skills or aspects of reading, include regular sessions maintained over a sustained period and are carefully timetabled to enable consistent delivery. Interventions might focus on other aspects of learning, such as behaviour or pupils’ social and emotional needs, or focus on particular groups of pupils with identified special educational needs or disabilities. Effective intervention follows assessment, which can be used to ensure that support is well-targeted and to monitor pupil progress. |
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Extended school time |
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In some cases, schools may consider extending the length of the school day; for example, to provide additional academic or pastoral support to particular pupils after school. There is some evidence that extending school time can have a small positive impact on learning as well as improving other outcomes, such as attendance and behaviour. However, to be successful, any increases in school time should be supported by both parents and staff. |
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Wider strategies |
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Supporting parents and carers |
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Parents have played a key role in supporting children to learn at home and it will be essential that schools and families continue to work together as pupils return to school. Schools have provided extensive pastoral support to pupils and families throughout the pandemic. Additional support could focus on providing regular and supportive communications with parents, especially to increase attendance and engagement with learning. There is a risk that high levels of absence pose a particular risk for disadvantaged pupils. Providing additional books and educational resources to families over the school holiday periods, with support and guidance, may also be helpful—for example, offering advice about effective strategies for reading with children. |
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Access to technology |
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Pupils’ access to technology has been an important factor affecting the extent to which they can learn effectively at home. In particular, lack of access to technology has been a barrier for many disadvantaged children. As all pupils return to schools, technology could also be valuable; for example, by facilitating access to online tuition or support. Some schools might find it helpful to invest in additional technology, either by providing pupils with devices or improving the facilities available in school. To support learning, how technology is used matters most. Ensuring the elements of effective teaching are present—for example, clear explanations, scaffolding, practice and feedback— is more important than which form of technology is used. In addition, providing support and guidance on how to use technology effectively is essential, particularly if new forms of technology are being introduced.
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Summer support |
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Summer programmes can benefit pupils socially and academically, helping to ensure that they return to school ready to learn. Summer support can also focus on a wide range of outcomes, such as confidence and wellbeing, and include a wide range of activities such as sports, music and drama that children might have missed out on during lockdown. One challenge for summer programmes is achieving high levels of attendance, particularly from children from disadvantaged families. Communicating with pupils and their families to assess levels of engagement and barriers to attendance is likely to be important. In addition, staffing is a key challenge, recognising the extensive demands placed on teachers and schools in recent months and the challenges created by public health requirements. For summer programmes to improve educational outcomes, they need to include high-quality academic support, such as small group tuition delivered by teachers or trained tutors. |
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St Peter’s Summary of Teaching and whole-school strategies |
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Supporting great teaching |
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Specific CPD requirements to be led by School Improvement Targets. |
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Pupil assessment and feedback |
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Transition support |
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Estimated Cost |
£1,000 |
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Targeted Support |
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One to one and small group tuition |
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Intervention programmes |
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Extended school time |
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Estimated Cost |
£15,000 |
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Wider strategies |
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Supporting parents and carers |
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Access to technology |
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Summer support |
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Estimated Cost |
£1,000 |