Year 7 Catch-up Premium

Jarrow School received additional funding to support year 7 students in literacy and numeracy. The allocation for the academic year 2019/20 was £8,474. Primarily the additional allocation has been used to place targeted support in small groups.

The funding has been used in a variety of ways:

Targeted support (Staffing costs: £7,155+top up of specialist resources £1,319)

In order to reinforce a strong skills base in reading, writing, spelling, comprehension and numeracy, our less able students are taught in small groups with the support of a Higher Level Teaching Assistant/Learning Support Assistant. Basic Skills lessons also take place every week allowing our students to develop the necessary skills required to access the curriculum with added confidence.

Staff training

Funding from the staff training budget has assisted with the cost of CPD for staff to be trained to HLTA level enabling them to teach the Catch-up programme.

Whole school literacy and numeracy

Throughout all subject areas there is a strong focus on the development of literacy and numeracy. This is also reinforced during assemblies and focus weeks and through our strong links with the local library service.

Whole school use of differentiation

A differentiated approach to learning ensures that individual needs are met and that all of our students have access to a broad and balanced curriculum that is both suitable to their abilities whilst still providing challenge enabling progress to be made.

Impact of catch up funding

Progress and improvement are measured through our assessment routines. The analysis of data, progress, effort and behaviour patterns are all taken into account when looking for patterns and trends. In order to meet the needs of individual students, support has been adapted where necessary.

Measured impact

Results analysis of our targeted students (not secondary ready) indicates that 91% of students made progress in English with 78% of students moving up to the expected level. In Maths, 96% of students made progress with 57% of students now working at the expected level.

Throughout Key Stage 3 there will be continuous monitoring of this group.

Academic year 2019-20

As of yet, funding for 2019-20 has not been released. However after evaluation of the programme, further resources have been purchased building upon the good practice already in place. We have a range of intervention strategies to improve reading and numeracy skills which supplement day to day teaching. These include: targeted numeracy tuition using Level Up Maths and Living Maths Scheme, a phonics corrective reading programme, one to one tuition using Toe by Toe, the Lexia reading programme for small targeted groups and a 1:1 literacy catch up programme for struggling readers. These are all managed by a group of well-trained Higher Level Teaching Assistants and Learning Support Assistants.