COVID 19 CATCH UP PREMIUM STATEMENT

In June, the government announced £1 billion of funding to support children and young people to catch up.  Further guidance has now been released:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/catch-up-premium-coronavirus-covid-19/catch-up-premium

showing that the money is to be split between a catch-up premium and a national tutoring scheme. The money for the catch up premium is designed to ensure that schools have the support they need for all pupils make up for lost teaching time, and the money for the national tutoring school is designed to provide additional, targeted support for those children and young people who need the most help.

The catch-up premium is funded on a per pupil basis at £80 per pupil. This will be based on the previous year’s census, meaning we will be in receipt of £14,400. It is not expected, however, that there will be a spend of £80 on each and every pupil in schools. The government has made it clear that the spending of this money will be down to schools to allocate as they see fit. To support schools to make the best use of this funding, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has published a support guide for schools with evidence-based approaches to catch up for all students.

There are two broad aims for “catch up” at Carter’s Charity:

• The mental health needs of pupils are well met and supported by the school.
• Attainment outcomes at end of 2020-21 for all year groups will be at least in line with those at the end of 2018-19.

At Carter’s, following the advice from the EEF the Covid-19 ‘Catch up’ money will be used in order to provide:

• curriculum resources and materials that support mental health and well-being of pupils
• the purchase of curriculum resources and materials that support “catch up”, e.g. additional phonics resources to allow 1:1 phonics “catch up” to take place
• employment of an experienced teacher two days a week from January 2021 to tutor small groups of children who have been identified as needing “catch up” in their learning.
• to fund participation in the DfE’s Nuffield Early Language Intervention in Foundation Stage. This is an evidence based 20-week oral language intervention programme for children in their first year of primary school who may need additional support in developing their oral language skills.
• To participate in an online professional development opportunity for all Lancashire schools. In line with both primary and secondary priorities around Covid-19 catch-up funding and disadvantaged learners, this will take the form of online training supporting ‘Making the Difference for Disadvantaged Learners’. This is an offer delivered by Blackpool Research School, Meols Cop Research School, Manchester Research School and Lancashire Associate Research School.