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Pupil Premium

Pupil Premium Strategy Statement

Queen Emma Primary School: 2023 - 2024

This statement details our school’s use of Pupil Premium funding to help improve the attainment of our disadvantaged pupils. This is the third year of implementing our three year plan.

It outlines our Pupil Premium strategy, how we intend to spend the funding in this academic year and the effect that last year’s spending of pupil premium had within our school.

School Overview

Detail Data
Queen Emma Primary School  
Number of pupils in school 375 (YR to Y6)
  425 (Nursery to Y6)
Proportion (%) of pupil premium eligible pupils 84 pupils = 22%
Academic year/years that our current pupil premium strategy plan covers (3 year plans are recommended) 2021 - 2022
  2022 - 2023
  2023 - 2024
Date this statement was published December 2021
Date on which it will be reviewed Reviewed annually
Statement authorised by Mrs S Jarman
  Executive Headteacher
Pupil premium lead Miss C Stubbs
  Deputy Headteacher
Governor / Trustee lead Dr. Sean Lang

Funding Overview

Detail Amount
Pupil premium funding allocation this academic year £130,505.00
Recovery premium funding allocation this academic year £11,205.00
Pupil premium funding carried forward from previous years (enter £0 if not applicable) £0
Total budget for this academic year If your school is an academy in a trust that pools this funding, state the amount available to your school this academic year £141,710.00

Part A: Pupil premium strategy plan

Statement of Intent

Our intention is that all pupils, irrespective of their background or the challenges they face develop a lifelong love of learning and leave our school with the key knowledge and understanding, skills and personal qualities they will need to thrive in a rapidly changing world. Our curriculum is our pupil’s opportunity and through carefully planned and sequenced learning opportunities, we aim to improve the life chances for all our pupils. As an inclusive, welcoming and caring school where every child matters, we recognise that all of our pupils have strengths and skills to celebrate. Our compassionate approach to engaging our pupils and parents ensures that pupils can make the best possible progress across all areas of the curriculum.

High-quality teaching is at the heart of our approach, with a focus on areas in which disadvantaged pupils require the most support. This is proven to have the greatest impact on narrowing the disadvantage attainment gap and at the same time will benefit the non-disadvantaged pupils in our school. Through our teaching, we strive to ensure that all our pupils make at least good progress and achieve the highest possible levels of attainment.

Our approach will be responsive to common challenges and individual needs, rooted in robust diagnostic assessment and not in assumptions about the impact of disadvantage. Our approaches ensure that all staff take responsibility for disadvantaged pupils’ outcomes and have high expectations of what disadvantaged pupils can achieve. We are constantly identifying ways to refine and improve our practice and to ensure that all staff understand the crucial part they play in addressing educational disadvantage.

Our ultimate objectives are:

  •  To narrow the attainment gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils.
  •  To ensure that disadvantaged pupils make at least expected levels of progress. · To improve attendance and punctuality.
  •  To support pupil’s health and wellbeing to enable them to access learning at an appropriate level.

We aim to do this through:

  • Supporting staff to develop knowledge and skills in how to address educational disadvantage
  • Allocating funding streams to ensure that teaching and learning opportunities meet the needs of all pupils.
  • Using targeted 1-1 support and small group support to narrow the attainment gap and to promote accelerated levels of progress.
  • Ensuring that pupils have access to an equitable and engaging curriculum offer as well as wider curriculum opportunities.
  • Offering strong support mechanisms to engage families through home-school family support workers and therapeutic approaches.
  • Supporting payment for activities, educational visits and residential activities, ensuring pupils have a wide variety of rich first hand experiences to use and support learning in the classroom.

Our key principle is to reduce the impact of disadvantage on educational outcomes for all pupils. We reserve the right to allocate the Pupil Premium funding to support any pupil or groups of pupils the school has legitimately identified as being socially disadvantaged. The challenges are varied and there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach.

Challenges

This details the key challenges to achievement that we have identified among our disadvantaged pupils.

Challenge Numbers Detail of Challenge
1 Assessments, observations and discussion with pupils demonstrate that disadvantaged pupils have greater difficulties with the acquisition and use of vocabulary, spoken language and phonic knowledge than their peers. This negatively impacts their development as readers.
2 Internal assessments indicate that attainment for disadvantaged pupils is significantly below that of non-disadvantaged pupils, particularly in writing and mathematics.
3 Poor attendance and punctuality issues are impacting on the attainment of disadvantaged pupils. Attendance data shows that attendance of disadvantaged pupils has been lower than non-disadvantaged pupils.
4 Assessments, observations and discussions with pupils and families have identified emotional and social issues, low self-confidence and difficulty in regulating emotions, including the use of emotional vocabulary.
5 Limited opportunities for wider educational and life experiences.

Intended Outcomes

This explains the outcomes we are aiming for by the end of our current strategy plan, and how we will measure whether they have been achieved.

Intended Outcome Success Criteria

Improved oral and language skills and vocabulary amongst disadvantaged pupils.

Assessments and observations indicate improved language among disadvantaged pupils. This will be evident through triangulation of evidence from oral language assessments, engagement in lessons, book scrutiny, pupil voice and ongoing formative assessment.

Improved outcomes in Y1 Phonics Check for disadvantaged pupils.

Y1 Phonics Check outcomes for disadvantaged pupils will improve over the next three years. More than 75% of disadvantaged pupils will achieve national attainment outcomes in the Y1 Phonics Check by 2024.

Improved outcomes in reading, writing and mathematics for disadvantaged pupils at the end of KS1 and KS2.

Outcomes for disadvantaged pupils will improve over the next three years. Disadvantaged pupils will make at least expected levels of progress in reading, writing and mathematics.

Sustained improvement in attendance for all pupils, particularly disadvantaged pupils.

Attendance of disadvantaged pupils is in line with local authority and national averages.

Sustained improvement in wellbeing for all pupils in school, particularly our disadvantaged pupils.

Sustained high levels of wellbeing will be demonstrated through observations, teacher and pupil voice.

Improved access to wider curriculum experiences for disadvantaged pupils.

There will be a significant increase in participation in enrichment and wider curriculum activities, particularly among disadvantaged pupils, leading to improved attitudes to learning.

Activity in this Academic Year

This details how we intend to spend our pupil premium (and recovery premium funding) this academic year to address the challenges listed above.

Teaching (for example, CPD, recruitment and retention)

Budgeted cost: £2,000

Activity Evidence that supports this approach Challenge number(s) addressed

Nurture Group leader to access CPD on Zones of Regulation / ELSA.

Training materials / information to be disseminated to Federation staff to support the creation of a ‘behaviour curriculum.’

There is extensive evidence associating childhood social and emotional skills with improved outcomes at school and in later life e.g. improved academic performance, attitudes, behaviour and relationships. Interventions which target social and emotional learning seek to improve pupil’s interactions with others and self-management of emotions, rather than focusing directly on the academic or cognitive elements of learning.

EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit: Social and Emotional Learning

4

Targeted academic support (for example, tutoring, one-to-one support structured interventions)

Budgeted cost: £80,550

Activity Evidence that supports this approach Challenge number(s) addressed

Small group phonics and reading intervention (FFT Tutoring with the Lightning Squad), targeted towards pupils in Y2 and KS2 who did not pass the Y1 Phonics Check and / or who are not secure with Phase 5 phonics.

Phonics approaches have a strong evidence base indicating a positive impact on pupils, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds. Targeted phonic and reading interventions have been shown to be more effective when delivered as regular sessions over a period up to 12 weeks.

EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit: Phonics and Individualised Instruction

1

Provision of small group and 1-1 tutoring for pupils in KS1 and KS2.

National Tuition Programme Funding

 

Purchase Phonics Play subscription / Reading APPS to support the lowest 20% of readers in Y2 and KS2.

 

Targeted tuition by teachers and teaching assistants to include use of pre-teach and post-teach opportunities, rapid, same day interventions and targeted individual and group interventions.

 

Targeted tuition at specific needs and knowledge gaps can be an effective method to support low attaining pupils or those falling behind, both 1-1 and in small groups Careful use of and analysis of assessment data across the school has enabled class teachers to identify groups of pupils in need of additional support. Identified gaps in learning will be filled through carefully planned teaching.

EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit: Teaching Assistant Interventions and Individualised Instruction

1 / 2

 

 

 

1 / 2

 

 

 

1 / 2

Wider strategies (for example, related to attendance, behaviour, wellbeing)

Budgeted cost: £59,160

Activity Evidence that supports this approach Challenge number(s) addressed
Embedding principles of good practice set out in the DfE’s Improving School Attendance advice.

The DfE guidance has been informed by engagement with schools that have significantly reduced levels of absence.

EEF Attendance Interventions: Rapid Evidence Assessment

3
Home-School Family Support Worker supports vulnerable families. Support for parents and pupils includes advice, guidance, early intervention and classroom support.

Parental engagement is defined as the involvement of parents in supporting their child’s academic learning. Our home school family worker provides vital support to parents regarding attendance, academic issues, social and emotional issues. Liaison with outside agencies is also provided for families in crisis.

EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit: Parental Engagement, Social and Emotional Learning

3, 4
Provision of therapeutic support to support pupils with social, emotional and mental health needs.

There is extensive evidence associating childhood social and emotional skills with improved outcomes at school and in later life e.g. improved academic performance, attitudes, behaviour and relationships. Interventions which target social and emotional learning seek to improve pupil’s interactions with others and self-management of emotions, rather than focusing directly on the academic or cognitive elements of learning.

EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit: Social and Emotional Learning

4

Wider Curriculum Opportunities To include… Financial support so that disadvantaged pupils are able to participate in a range of after school clubs, extra-curricular and enrichment activities such as educational visits and activities, theatre groups, concerts, sports events, music lessons, book fair vouchers and residential experiences.

Provision of breakfast, before and after school club, holiday club or HAF club places for disadvantaged pupils to support emotional well-being, school attendance and ensuring pupils start the day ‘ready to learn.’

Based on our experiences, we have identified a need to provide funding to enable disadvantaged pupils to take part in a wide variety of extra-curricular and enrichment activities. Participation in these activities supports the development of speaking and listening skills, key ‘learning for life’ skills such as perseverance and resilience and promote self-confidence and self-regulation skills for individuals. Provision of these activities also boosts pupil well-being, behaviour, attendance and aspiration. They also provide excellent opportunities for pupils to demonstrate use of the 7 habits and develop leadership skills both in and out of the school environment.

EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit: Arts Participation, Meta-Cognition and Self-Regulation, Social and Emotional Learning ‘The Seven Habits of Effective People’ by Stephen Covey.

3, 4, 5

Total budgeted cost: £141,710

Part B: Review of outcomes in the previous academic year

Pupil premium strategy Outcomes

This details the impact that our Pupil Premium activity had on pupils in the 2022 - 2023 academic year.

Internal assessment from 2022 - 2023 indicate that disadvantaged pupils made at least expected levels of progress in reading, writing and mathematics. These levels of progress were in line with their non-disadvantaged peers. However, the attainment of disadvantaged pupils was significantly lower than that of their non-disadvantaged peers in the majority of year groups.

In 2022 - 2023, we used our National Tuition Programme funding to target support for our disadvantaged pupils. Funding was used to implement ‘Tutoring with the Lightning Squad’ to raise attainment and progress in reading for disadvantaged pupils from Y1 to Y6. This intervention enabled pupils in all but two year groups to make above expected levels of progress in Reading across the year and closed the gap between progress outcomes between non-disadvantaged pupils and our disadvantaged pupils. The closing of the attainment gap continues to be a high priority in 2023 – 2024.

Absence among disadvantaged pupils was 3.9% higher (90.5%) than their non-disadvantaged peers (94.4%) in 2022 – 2023. Work to close this gap in 2022 – 2023 included regular monitoring of attendance by the Deputy Headteacher and Pastoral Leader, focusing on pupils whose attendance had dropped below 90%. Pupils with concerning levels of attendance were regularly discussed at ECM meetings and parents were invited to meet with members of FLT. The three letter system was implemented and support was offered to parents / carers via our home-school family worker or an early help assessment. Attendance Bears were awarded weekly to the class with the highest attendance and pupils with great attendance (96%+) were awarded with stickers. Individual pupil attendance was also regularly discussed at termly parent-teacher meetings. Penalty notices have been issued for holiday requests. From January 2022, in line with LA guidelines, we reinstated penalty notices for holiday requests. Our work to raise the attendance of our disadvantaged pupils continues to be a key focus of our 2023 – 2024 plan.

Our assessments and observations indicate that pupil behaviour and well-being for the vast majority of pupils remained positive. Pupils met the expectations and routines of school life and continued to refer to the habits during their learning and in helping to solve issues as they arose both in and out of the classroom. A small number of pupils demonstrated challenges in relation to wellbeing and mental health. Support from external agencies was sought and implemented. This continues to be a significant area of need for 2023 – 2024.

The support of our Home-School Family Worker proved invaluable during the year. This provision enabled us to respond very quickly to pupils displaying low, medium and high level needs. In person therapeutic support continued in 2022 - 2023. This proved to be very beneficial to the pupils and families involved.

The Leader in Me continued to take a high profile throughout 2022 – 2023. Opportunities were targeted towards our disadvantaged pupils. This enabled a greater number of disadvantaged pupils to take on leadership roles and develop their leadership skills within the school community, both in and out of the classroom.

‘Real life experiences’ and curriculum enrichment activities took place throughout 2022 – 2023, providing all pupils with the opportunity to develop lifelong learning skills. Examples of enrichment activities included visits from History Off the Page, a visit to the local mosque and visits to Duxford Imperial War Museum and the Scott Polar Museum. Year 6 enjoyed two fun-filled days at Grafham Water, enjoying a wide range of water sports including raft building, kayaking and sailing. All activities were provided free of charge for pupils in receipt of Pupil Premium funding.

Premier Sports and other external providers offered a range of extra-curricular clubs in 2022 – 2023. Pupils in receipt of Pupil Premium funding were offered a paid place at chosen club. Throughout the year, Premier Sport continued to run lunchtime activities. The sessions were greatly enjoyed by all pupils and offered a welcome ‘well-being and exercise’ break for many children. Collaborative and teamwork skills were also developed during these lunchtime sessions. In 2022 - 2023, attendance at extra-curricular by pupils in receipt of Pupil Premium funding was 75%. We aim to increase this in 2023 – 2024.

We have reviewed our strategy plan and made changes to how we intend to use some of our funding this academic year in order to further progress towards our expected outcomes.

Further Information

Additional Activity

Our Pupil Premium strategy will be supplemented by additional activity that is not being funded by Pupil Premium or Recovery Premium funding. This will include:

· Consolidation of use of FFT Success For All Phonics programme.

· Staff training on a therapeutic approach to understanding and supporting behaviour.

· Support from LA English Adviser to raise outcomes in Writing in UKS2.

· Support from LA Mathematics Adviser to raise outcome in Mathematics in UKS2.

· Continuation of staff development of knowledge of the ‘Maths Mastery’ approach through attendance on the KS2 Mastering Number Programme. Additional support and training for individual members of staff will be led by the Mathematics subject leader.

· Embedding more effective practice around feedback and marking. EEF evidence suggests that this has significant benefits for pupils, particularly disadvantaged pupils.

· Tracking all groups of disadvantaged pupils within Pupil Progress meetings, working together with class teachers to best support disadvantaged pupils in all areas of learning.

· Continuation of our Leader in Me journey to support the development of pupil leadership

· In line with our two-year curriculum action plan, curriculum leaders and subject leaders will continue to develop subject skills and progression documents, supporting class teachers to produce carefully sequenced medium term planning for each subject.

· Introduction of a Nurture Group led by a newly appointed Nurture Group Leader to provide a safe space for pupils to develop strategies to promote positive social, emotional and mental health.

· Introduction of a Therapy Dog to enhance all pupils learning and education, supporting them to develop a sense of responsibility and respect for life and provide an increased sense of awareness of the feelings and needs of others.

· Continuing to offer a wide range of high-quality extra-curricular activities to boost wellbeing, attendance and aspiration. Activities will support the development of lifelong learning skills such as self-confidence, resilience and collaborative working. All disadvantaged pupils will be supported to and encouraged to participate.

Planning, Implementation and Evaluation

In planning our new Pupil Premium strategy, we evaluated the impact of the activities undertaken last year. Evidence from a number of sources (assessments, book scrutiny, staff and pupil discussions), as well as the reading of reports and research papers helped us identify the challenges faced by disadvantaged pupils. We used the EEF’s implementation guidance to help us refine our strategy for 2023 – 2024. We will continue to use it when adjusting our plan over time and to support the implementation of activities. The plan will be robustly evaluated at the end of each academic year with the aim to build on successes and to secure better outcomes for all pupils, in particular disadvantaged pupils at the end of each academic year.

We will be constantly evaluating and refining our practises and approaches and will do everything we can to improve the life chances of all our pupils through focusing on what we know makes the biggest difference to our pupils: working together to improve the quality of teaching, learning and support daily.