The Government has allocated a total of £80 per pupil (for Reception through to Year 11), split into three instalments across the academic year. A recent announcement suggested that a similar fund may be available in the following year as well.
Details on how we spent last year's Covid Catch Up Fund for 2020-21 can be found HERE.
National Tutoring Programme
The NTP has been set up to provide schools with tutors to assist with the catch up programme. The government has provided money to reduce the cost of the tutoring, and the school pays the rest of the amount from the covid catch up fund. Before the end of the academic year, our intention is to complete a block (15 hours) of 1 to 3 tutoring with targeted students from Year 9 and KS4. This initiative will be launched in school when the students have returned to school, but may contain a mix of in school and at home tuition. Due to Covid, it is most likely that the majority of this wave one intervention will take place remotely. However, we feel that providing the resources and a supervised room for the sessions (at least to begin with) is essential in setting the right tone and ensuring good attendance. We also believe that, right now, students are already spending a lot of time behind screens and any additional time would be unreasonable. The targeted students in wave one have been selected from core and Ebac subjects. The funding is set to continue into the next academic year, so we will look to include another cohort of students and perhaps broaden the subject base (providing the tutors are available and there is a learning need). Teachers will provide information to tutors on the areas of learning to target, and will assess the impact on examination grades as a result of this targeted intervention. We will use this data to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme.
Department Catch Up Requests
Departments have written department catch up action plans for the year. Many of these include catch up expenditure which is drawn from the catch up fund. Departments will evaluate the impact of this expenditure using a tool provided by the government. This enables departments to tailor the spend to their individual subject requirements.
Equipment
We have authorised the purchase of 30 laptops to supplement the laptops issued by the government, due to a high level of need. This will be evaluated via online learning engagement tracking data.
Intervention Support: KS4
Funding will be spent on staffing attached to the Bridge, to expand its remit. We are looking at specialised intervention support for students as well as general organisational support in attending revision classes, meeting coursework deadline and setting out (and sticking to!) revision plans. This will be evaluated via the Bridge Action and Evaluation Plan tracking tools.
Follow Up Funding
Plans for further support where funding allows include online learning in the holidays if we can source a high quality package, and further intervention support in Maths.
How the effect of this expenditure will be assessed
We will closely monitor the impact these strategies have on the educational attainment of pupils. Teachers will continue to assess and monitor attainment and progress in their classes. This data will be collected at regular calendared intervals and monitored at individual pupil level across the whole school. We will use this information to assess the impact these strategies are having on individual pupils performance and redirect resources accordingly. This will work in conjunction with our normal strategies of identifying any learning gaps, applying extra learning strategies and resources and testing to check the gaps have been filled.
We will continue to review our plans as further government announcements are made.
