‘Catch-Up Premium’ funding is available to schools to enable students to catch up following the unprecedented disruption to their education caused by COVID-19.  Devonport High School for Girls will use this funding for specific activities to support our students in catching up any lost teaching over the previous months in line with the DfE guidance. The DfE guidance sets out the following expectations to ensure all students, particularly disadvantaged, vulnerable and SEND students, are given catch-up support. Education is not optional, curriculum must remain broad and ambitious and these principles must extend to remote learning provision.

To implement our catch-up premium strategy, we will:

1. Identify which students need additional support using diagnostic tools to assess understanding, engagement and well-being.
2. Prioritise high quality instruction in the classroom through professional development and effective remote learning.
3. Target academic support to improve progress using structured interventions such as small group tuition and one-to-one support.
4. Use wider strategies to overcome non-academic barriers to success by providing students with support for their emotional and behavioural needs whilst working closely with families.

Strand 1 Diagnostic assessment £500

High quality targeted diagnostic assessment, which includes regular low stakes assessments, will provide staff with data about which students require support. The Behaviour, Attendance and Emotional (BAE) audit and additional information from Student Support and Pastoral Teams will provide information about student welfare needs.  Students will be identified at three different levels of priority / need. Academic intervention strategies will be overseen by Raising Standards Leaders (RSLs) working closely with Heads of Department (HoD). The Student Support and Pastoral team, led by the Designated Safeguard Lead (DSL) will oversee intervention strategies that support students social, emotional and behavioural needs. We recognise that these two areas are interconnected. RSLs and the DSL will work closely together to ensure the most suitable approach is used with each student. Years 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12 will be monitored through diagnostic assessment points throughout the year and Raising Standards Leaders will work with Heads of Department to target interventions.

Strand 2 High quality instruction: £4,500

Every student will be supported to catch-up. Excellent teaching will have the greatest impact on student progress and facilitating a student’s ability to catch-up on lost learning.  To support this, we will focus on an approach that further develops the quality of instruction and student practice in lessons and builds upon Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction. Staff will receive INSET that focuses on four key phases within a lesson: reflection; teacher instruction; deliberate practice and responsive interactions.  We will collaborate with Plymouth Secondary Strategy Team to share best practice. Regular low stakes diagnostic assessment will feed into our overall catch-up tracking. We have invested in membership of the National College, a multi award-winning provider of courses and webinars. This provides our staff with access to training that supports this Catch-up strategy. 

Strand 3 Targeted academic intervention: £35,000

We will offer high quality, targeted, one-to-one and group academic support. A continual assessment strategy (see Strand 1) will identify the students requiring academic intervention. An after school programme of support for Year 11 and 13 students will be managed by the RSLs and led by departments. This programme will prioritise and target support for students with the greatest need. There will be a package of in-class support created by HoD for students found to be below expected progress. HoD working closely with their Senior Leadership Team (SLT) link will establish an action plan with resourcing and staffing intervention strategies identified. 

Strand 4 Wider strategies: £ 10,000 

Wider strategies will be employed to support students with social, emotional and behavioural needs that are a barrier to their engagement and ability to access the curriculum. In addition, other strategies will be employed to ensure we support remote learning, develop study skills of learners and communicate and support parents and carers effectively.

Edulink One App membership will provide us with the tools to communicate with parents / carers effectively in real time with push notifications. This will support the link between home and school and will be particularly useful should staff move to teaching remotely. It will also improve engagement as the app has a feature rewarding both progress and effort. To support students in Year 11 and 13 prepare for their upcoming external examinations, we will invest in support from Elevate Education. They will lead a study skills programme with engaging online workshops and classroom resources. 

Bespoke support for students to improve their engagement and health will be an important part of this strand. The student support and pastoral teams will work with external agencies and access additional in-school counselling as the need arises.

We are focused on providing high quality remote learning through MS Teams. Students and staff are very familiar with this teaching and collaboration platform. Work that is set online will follow the same high quality instruction as detailed in Strand 2. We will continue to monitor IT provision for remote learning for both staff and students throughout the year and provide support.

We will always consider the welfare of our staff and students when approaching and evaluating the impact of these strategies.

Over the course of the academic year 2020-2021, catch-up premium funding has been used for:

• Diagnostic assessment
• High quality instruction
• Targeted academic intervention
• Wider strategies

The school ensured that the catch-up premium funding was used to enable students to catch up following disruption to their education caused by Covid-19. 

Strand 1 Diagnostic assessment – no costs incurred

• The Raising Standards Leaders (RSLs) for both lower and upper school oversaw academic intervention strategies worked closely with Heads of Department (HoD). In the Autumn Term, the RSLs worked closely with HoDs, identifying priority 1 and 2 students for both Year 11 and 13.  Priority 1 were students that had difficulties in several subject areas and had a low progress 8 projection (L20+) or VA score, whilst priority 2 encompassed those who were significantly behind in a specific subject. The students’ progress was closely monitored so we could review the impact of any strategies. 
• Collaboration between DSL/RSL has continued and adaptations to the curriculum for those students who require it (including dropping subjects) has continued to be effective.
• Students were identified in the lockdown of the summer term and their progress tracked and catchup sessions were attended by Year 12 in the summer term.  Year 13 then undertook September assessments in the 2nd week back of the new term to measure their progress, and this was then fed into the progress review for October. When we started back in September, their progress data was tracked as a discreet group, and shared with Heads of Department at the first RSL meeting in the autumn term.  The initial progress of the catch-up group in the autumn term was -0.80, compared to 0.02 for the rest of the cohort at after the first progress review in October.
• Years 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12 were monitored through diagnostic assessment points throughout the year and Raising Standards Leaders worked with Heads of Department to target interventions.
• The Student Support and Pastoral team, led by the Designated Safeguard Lead (DSL) ensured that intervention strategies supported students’ social, emotional and behavioural needs. 
• RSLs and the DSL were in regular communication throughout the year to ensure the most suitable approach is used with each student. 
• Student support team support continued with Educare students and the SST/HOH/Tutor teams provided one to one mentoring and pastoral support both group and one-to-one meetings via MS Teams.  DSL multi-agency work has continued unaffected.  
• GCSE and A Level outcomes showed strong progress across both year groups and was the highest achieved in recent years.

Strand 2 High Quality Instruction - £1068*

• Staff received training looking at the Four Phases of a lesson designed around Rosenshine Principles of Retrieval, Teacher instruction, Deliberate practice and Consolidation
• A Teaching and Learning MS Team was established, which provided additional support to staff including how to use Rosenshine’s principles during remote learning
• Additional training and support was given to staff who were less confident using MS Teams to enable them to deliver live lessons
• Opportunities to share good practice across all departments to embed use of MS Forms in swiftly monitoring progress in live lessons
• All staff received a National College membership allowing them to access high-quality courses and webinars
• AHT i.c. T and L completed Tom Sherrington Walkthrus CPD and we incorporated some of these strategies into a coaching model to develop teaching and high-quality instruction in the classroom.

*National College Membership financially supported from WSCPD fund

Strand 3 Targeted intervention - £3692

• Mathematics and English departments worked with a targeted group of y11 students during tutor time
• Subject tutoring took place after school and was led by our own staff. It was targeted and subject specific and focused on providing support to priority 1 and 2 students.
• 59 students from y11 took part across a mapped two-week timetable
• A targeted group of catch up students in the 6th form was selected to undertake catch up study blocks every week, staffed by a member of the Sixth Form Team and run with the Heads of Dept that had selected them.
• We selected certain students for Educare because of ongoing issues with engagement during the second lock down period from January to July.
• Twilight subject specific tutoring sessions for y13 students started after the January assessments.  These were well attended and built on the good work that had already been done, resulting in improved progress by all that attended.
• The impact of all the tutoring sessions was positive and resulted in students making better than expected progress.

Strand 4 Wider Strategies - £17590

• Edulink One was used to improve communication between school and home, especially during the lockdown episodes. Further development of this platform was postponed whilst staff perfected their use of MS Teams.
• As part of the Catch-Up Premium funding students in Years 13 and 11 were taking part in a bespoke study skills programme delivered by multi-award winning and internationally acclaimed Elevate Education. These were delivered through the pastoral curriculum and overseen by the Senior Head of House for Year 11 and Sixth Form Team Year 13. The two units covered so far were study sensai and time management. manual accompanies each online session to assist students’ in actioning what they have learnt. Alongside these seminars, parents and carers of students from all years were able to access a series of seminars as part of our package and were sent out details via Edulink. The first couple of sessions looked at increasing and sustaining motivation, managing student stress and well-being, and this week preparing for assessments.
• The school laid on enrichment activities to support intellectual, physical, spiritual, social development whilst building self-esteem and self-confidence. These included trips to the Adrenaline Quarry for year 8 and 12, Bude for Years 9 and 10 and Escot Park for year 7.  
• In addition to the points made in strand one above, students have continued to access KOOTH online and Young Devon Counselling has been a mixture of face to face and via Zoom dependent on national Covid-19 restrictions.  The Zone have also provided targeted work on emotional health and wellbeing to an identified group of Yr8 students who were attending Educare on site.  Multi-agency referrals have continued to be made, e.g. to First Light, CAMHS and Family Group Conferencing.

DHSG total allocation £50760

After costs incurred through 2020-21 a carry forward of £29310 was left allowing for catch-up activities in 2021-22

Following the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent closure of schools, the government allocated a one-off recovery premium to support students’ continued education recovery. We outline below our school's strategies for recovery and proposed use of funding. These strategies have been guided by the COVID-19 Support Guide for Schools published by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and endorsed by the DfE. This document supported us in identifying the most effective strategies which result in the most positive outcomes for students, based on long-term research.

Funding Allocation

Schools’ allocation of funding is calculated using pupil premium data. It is in addition to Catch-up premium funding received last year, which was allocated to schools to mitigate the effects of the unique disruption caused by coronavirus (COVID-19).

DHSG allocation = Recovery Premium £7250 + In School Tutoring £6075 + Carry forward £29310 

Use of funds

Schools should use this funding for specific activities to support by providing quality teaching, targeted academic support and deal with non-academic barriers (such as attendance, behaviour and social and emotional support). Schools have the flexibility to spend the recovery premium on a wider cohort of pupils and where the need is greatest.

Accountability and Monitoring

As with all government funding, school leaders must be able to account for how this money is being used to achieve the central goal of schools getting back on track as quickly as possible.

Given their role in ensuring schools spend funding appropriately and in holding schools to account for educational performance, governors will scrutinise the school’s approaches to catch-up, including their plans for and use of this funding. This should include consideration of whether schools are spending this funding in line with their priorities, and ensuring appropriate transparency with plans published on the school website (DfE guidance - Coronavirus (COVID-19) catch-up premium).

The school will report on their use of recovery premium within their pupil premium strategy statement at the end of the academic year.

 Separate document as an attachment on the webpage

Strand 1 Diagnostic Assessment  -  £6254

New Group Reading Test NGRT - GL Assessment  

All Y7 students will complete the NGRT (New Group Reading Test) to identify current level of literacy through adaptive tasks that enable teachers to prioritise students with gaps in their learning through bespoke support. Alongside detailed data categories, it will also provide learning implications for teaching.  Middle Leaders training in October will focus on how to interpret and use the data and also CPD on the need for specific vocabulary instruction in all subjects (a trend identified by the tests). The CPD and time to embed improved practice will be part of the focus for other teaching staff on the INSET day at the end of term 1. The process will provide very precise diagnostic data that will enable teachers to best support Y7 students; closing the vocabulary gap and putting them on a pathway to rapid progress and confidence across all subjects. The Y7 cohort will be tested again in July to evidence progression; this process may also identify learning gaps in Y8 and provide expert instruction in lessons. The added benefit of this teaching and learning focused data is that all year groups will gain from the teacher understanding of literacy in their subject and the refined approaches to adaptive teaching, specifically vocabulary – a high leverage aspect of progress. 

CAT4 baseline assessments – GL Assessment

Due to the absence of KS2 baseline data CAT4 (Year 7) and Midyis - CEM (Year 8) will assess current abilities of students at KS3. These digital tests assess a range of areas – verbal and non-verbal reasoning, mathematics and spatial reasoning. They will provide a rounded profile of student ability, allowing for targeted support and predictions on student progress – GCSE outcomes.    

ALPs powerful online student performance analysis KS5 

To support the focus on catch up and progress, we will utilise ALPs as an assessment tool as this focuses more on individual student progress in relation to class, target grade, but also national benchmarks.  This will allow KS5 Raising Standards Leader, RSL to target students that are behind in terms of expected progress and for interventions to be put in place in discussion with Heads of Department, HoD.

Strand 2 High Quality Instruction  -  £5200

NGRT in the classroom 

NGRT reports allow staff to focus on identified underlying skills that limit student progress, improving planning and quality of teaching. (see above section for details)  

Coaching model developing practice in the classroom 

Developing staff confidence in using the 4 phases of a lesson –retrieval, instruction, deliberate practice and consolidation will benefit ALL students. There are currently 12 coaches working with teachers across a range of subjects through the process of a developmental drop-in/coaching conversation/review of actionable steps. Teachers are focused on creating a supportive culture of collaboration across the school; the sharing of practice and engagement with the mindset that everyone can and will improve will facilitate ever better practice in our classrooms, supporting all students to progress rapidly and with confidence.         

SPARX Mathematics online tool 

SPARX Maths provides a personalised approach to learning mathematics. We have initially bought into the homework package that supports, motivates and challenges all students. The Maths department are very enthusiastic about SPARX. It has launched with brilliant success across year groups with huge engagement; it will support rapid progress and independent learning to close gaps in knowledge and boost confidence and a love of Maths. We are looking at using some recovery premium funding to ensure we can continue to use this package.    

 Strand 3 Targeted academic intervention -  £8075

Year 11 and 13 targeted tutoring organised centrally and led by staff 

This was successful last year, and for many identified KS4 and KS5 students, had a significant impact on their progress after the lockdown period.  We targeted students based upon need and priority, and staff could target areas of the curriculum where there were gaps and need for skills deficits to be addressed. We plan to re-establish this programme after October half term.

 Strand 4 Wider Strategies  -  £17554

‘Unifrog’ an extensive package supporting students find their future 

This is a careers platform that assesses and tracks student interaction with the careers curriculum.  As part of the catch-up programme, Unifrog will play a vital part in targeting students who have not achieved the required competencies to prepare them for the next stage of their lives, but will also allow EL and DPY to adopt, adapt and improve provision in real-time, addressing the needs of students in terms of skills required and advice. We have rolled it out to all year groups. 

Mental well-being project 

SENCO/SST will coordinate a programme of support to support targeted students in Yr11 (with potential support from targeted students in Sixth Form) to promote and develop self-esteem, confidence and resilience.  We will deliver the programme via a range of activities, both physical and mental.

Training for staff – suicide awareness and trauma and mental health training 

RMN to complete suicide prevention course ‘Asist’ to further develop in house ability to identify and support those with suicidal ideation.  We will continue to develop DHSG as a trauma aware school through engagement with the City wide ‘Trauma-Informed Practice’ roll out.  Three further pastoral staff will complete the Mental First Aid two-day training. 

Strategies for attendance, behaviour and social and emotional support  

We will consider bespoke programmes supporting students with Emotional Based School Avoidance both in house and from external agencies such as ACE Dover Road and Poles Apart. We will support SEN students via an after school SST ‘Home Learning’ club to re-establish positive learning behaviours, independent study skills and academic resilience.  The successful ‘Room Buddies’ programme will be re-instated to facilitate access to computer rooms as both quiet spaces for students with sensory difficulties and/or other SEMH barriers to learning and study spaces for each year group.

Elevate Education 

After successfully using Elevate Education’s studies skills programme last year with year 11 and 13 we plan to use this again, targeting years 10 and 12. Following review and feedback from staff and students, we agreed our students would benefit from learning about these key skills at an earlier point in their learning. 

Edulink  

We will further develop our use of Edulink to increase home school engagement and communication further whilst streamlining the way staff work.