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Pupil Premium Funding

Pupil Premium Strategy 2021-2024 (three-year plan)

 

Current Academic Year Planned Spend Please click here for details
Previous Academic Year Spend and Impact Please click here for details

Current Academic Year Grant Allocation 

 

1st Year 2021-2022 £38,315

2nd Year 2022 - 2023 £40,841

3rd Year 2023 - 2024 £42,820

Main Barriers to Educational Achievement
  • Lower starting points
  • Children are not reading at home
  • Narrower vocabulary and weaker oral and communication skills
  • Lack of parental engagement
  • Fewer enriching life experiences
  • Difficulties with social skills and peer relationships
How the Grant will be Spent Please refer to Shirley Schools Pupil Premium Building Blocks below and the full pupil premium strategy for Shirley Infant School
How the Impact will be Measured Please refer to Shirley Schools Pupil Premium Building Blocks below and the full pupil premium strategy for Shirley Infant School
Review Date for Pupil Premium Strategy

September 2024

The full pupil premium strategy for Shirley Infant School can be viewed in the PP Proposed Spend page of this section of the website

What is Pupil Premium?

The Pupil Premium is additional funding given to schools so that they can support their disadvantaged pupils and diminish the difference between themselves and their peers. The funding is allocated to schools for children from Reception to Year 11. The Government gives schools pupil premium funding for:

• every child currently registered as eligible for free school meals

• all children eligible for free school meals at any point in the past 6 years

• children who have been looked after by the local authority

• children whose parents serve in the armed forces

The DFE states:
“The pupil premium is additional funding given to schools to improve the educational and personal outcomes for pupils who have been adopted from care, including (but not limited to) their attainment. It is not intended that the additional funding should be used to back-fill the general school budget nor is it the policy intention that the funding should be used to support other groups of pupils, such as (for example) those with special educational needs or who are low attaining.”

The funding is not ring-fenced and is not for individual children – so the Department would not necessarily expect the school to spend £2345 on every child adopted from care on roll at the school. This is partially because a child may have left the school and new pupils may have joined but also because a school is best placed to determine how the additional funding can be deployed to have the maximum impact.  For example, a school may decide to train their staff in recognising and responding to attachment-related issues; or that a particular adopted child needs tailored support that is in excess of the £2345 the school has received. Alternatively, they may decide that a whole class intervention is appropriate and that other pupils that attract the pupil premium will benefit from this, alongside other pupils who are not deemed to be disadvantaged.

Shirley Schools Pupil Premium Building Blocks

Shirley Infant and Junior Plan for Disadvantaged Pupils

Research undertaken by the NFER has identified 7 building blocks that are common in schools which are more successful in raising disadvantaged pupils’ attainment.

  1. Whole school ethos of attainment for all
  2. Addressing behaviour and attendance
  3. High quality teaching for all
  4. Meeting individual learning needs
  5. Deploying staff effectively
  6. Data driven and responding to evidence
  7. Clear, responsive leadership

 

1. Whole school ethos of attainment for all

We aim to ensure that every child leaves Shirley Infant School and Shirley Junior School excited about learning and determined to succeed.  We want to equip them with confidence, resilience and a passion for justice and equality.  These qualities will enable them to thrive and to champion kindness and fairness at all stages of their future lives.

‘Every child, every chance, every day.’

2. Addressing behaviour and attendance

The links between regular attendance, reaching potential attainment and future life opportunities are well researched. For this reason the schools will encourage good attendance and be robust in monitoring attendance and take action when attendance fails.

Barriers to Learning:

  • Punctuality can cause pupils to miss key aspects of leaning and miss the welcoming of each school day.  Therefore, sometimes causing anxiety about entering the classrooms after registration with their peers.  There are 25% pupils who have been identified as persistently late.  (Persistent late considered as on over 5 occasions or equating to over 30 minutes)
  • Persistent low attendance cause gaps to develop in children’s learning.  14% have been identified as having persistent low attendance below 90% since September.
  • For some poor behaviour impacts hugely on learning and impacts on pupils’ outcomes and achievement.
  • Low self-esteem and emotional and behavioural needs can restrict a pupil from accessing their learning.

Provision and Impact:

  • Family Support worker is employed one and half days a week. She works with some of our vulnerable families by visiting them in their homes, offering parental advice. She works with families to find solutions for poor attendance and support parents; this has resulted in better communication families who have historically found it difficult to engage with school.
  • EWO to work closely with the school and parents, along with other professional agencies, to help them overcome problems which may prevent students from attending regularly.
  • Attendance initiatives in class and whole school
  • Our ELSA runs ‘Talk about’ intervention to develop social skills of identified pupils
  • ELSA 1:1 session for individual needs
  • Additional sports coach ‘Team Spirit’ at lunchtime as well as 2 extra Play Leaders to help build children’s cooperative play skills to enable them to have a successful break allowing them to return to class ready to learn.
  • Provide financial support to those eligible for Pupil Premium for school uniform and sports kit
  • TA led ‘Purple Club’ sessions in Year 3, working on self-esteem & social skills has seen a huge impact including better engagement with homework and in class, increased confidence, improved output of learning (Junior)
  • Access to one paid after school club each term

3. High quality teaching for all

Creative learning is at the heart of our teaching and learning policy at Shirley Infant and Shirley Junior Schools. We believe that developing creativity in pupils leads to learners with an excitement for learning, a confident and enquiring attitude, increasing independence in learning and willingness to take risks.

Shirley Infant and Junior Schools emphasise ‘Quality first teaching’

Barriers to Learning:

  • Low prior attainment requires rapid progress in order to meet age-related expectations. Precision teaching and support needs to be carefully targeted by staff to accelerate progress.
  • Delayed speech and language can hinder their self-esteem and potential cause emotional stress.  A pupil’s sentence structure and phonic development can hinder their progress in Phonics and English particularly.  Physical development with the muscles in a child’s mouth can delay their sound pronunciation and speaking development.
  • Pupils who have English as an additional language (EAL) sometimes have difficulty in understanding vocabulary used in topics and forming a secure sentence structure.  Their speaking development can sometimes be 2/3 stages behind their peers.  It can take pupils with limited or No English a whole year to feel confident to use the language publicly and confidently. 19 % or EAL are also PP.
  • Some children who are eligible for pupil Premium funding may not been able to have the life experiences their peers have had.  This can mean that possibly they have had less opportunity to access a range of enrichment experiences that could support them in accessing the curriculum.  We strive for all our children to have high aspirations for themselves linking to our statement.

‘Every child, Every chance, Every day.’

Provision and Impact:

  • Curriculum design includes hooks, celebrations and enrichment opportunities in all subjects to ensure pupils enjoy and have a purpose for learning
  • Pre-teaching Curriculum now embedded and allows children early exposure to topic vocabulary and real life experiences.  This allows the children to feel more confident during the topic and become mini experts in certain topics boosting their self-esteem and confidence to contribute. (Infants)
  • The school will cover the cost of music tuition for FSM who wish to learn an instrument. (Junior)
  • The school will continue to fund school day trips for all pupils eligible for Pupil Premium.
  • The cost of one residential trip is covered to ensure all pupils eligible for Pupil Premium experience a trip away once whilst at our school. (Junior)
  • Talk for Writing to develop oral language
  • Speech & Language & EAL TA specialist (0.6) support to boost language skills of certain children.
  • Regular coaching by the Director of Teaching & Learning and Year Leader in class alongside the teacher and during PPA sessions.
  • Whole school trained in P4C (ethos taken from Sutton Trust evidence that Oral Language Development increase attainment of disadvantaged pupils).  P4C leads in place to plan focus days and ensure opportunities across the curriculum.
  • Offer a range of after-school clubs subsidised by the school including Drumming, ukulele, cooking, art, Spanish, Latin sports clubs and choir (Junior) …. Offer a range of after-school clubs subsidised by the school including football, Dance, Little Cooks, Multi Skills, Karate, High 5s. (Infant)

4. Meeting individual learning needs

Teachers and leaders at Shirley Infant and Junior schools identify what challenges and interest each pupil. Through rigorous assessments, teachers plan each lesson according to the individual needs of each child.  Resources are used to ensure each individual is supported for specific needs.

Barriers to Learning:

  • Due to some language barriers for our EAL parents it can be difficult to communicate with the school or support their child at home with their learning.
  • Some pupils do not have the life experiences needed to recall parts of their topic or use the language required for the topic or learning.
  • Low starting points
  • Some pupils can have a much lower bank of key vocabulary

Provision and Impact:

  • Continue to promote half-termly ‘Holiday Home learning project’. Pupils provided with free resources and drop in session for parents to support with ideas for the children’s project, this has resulted in an increase number of PP pupils bring back in home learning projects.
  • Paired Reading Intervention for 10 identified pupils and parents/carers to boost reading at home. (Infants)
  • Parent Intervention groups, pupils and parents learning together sessions, maths. (Junior)
  • Feedback through marking is embedded within the schools; these children continue to be a focus and are monitored in each year group.
  • An additional teacher is appointed one morning a week to ensure pupils have targeted, high quality  teaching, including higher ability - all pupils eligible for Pupil Premium (Infants)
  • Buddy system to support learning.
  • Pre teaching curriculum plan to give Pupil Premium experiences prior to their topics.

5. Deploying staff effectively

Shirley Infant and Junior Schools emphasise ‘Quality First Teaching. All adult time is used effectively to ensure teaching is targeted to pupils’ needs. Senior leaders and Year leaders continually assess, monitor and evaluate pupil progress and deploy staff accordingly

Barriers to Learning:

  • Timetabling for staff to run intervention groups alongside requirements of curriculum
  • Recruiting good parent helpers so can be targeted for extra reading, sound recognition and number skills
  • Maintaining trained staff in key positions to deliver key aspects of support

Provision and Impact:

  • Continue using teaching assistants in all year groups work with identified pupils one to one and small group precision teaching or ‘targeted activities’ to address gaps in learning following a lesson so they can keep up with learning in the class.
  • Staff continue to run interventions including basic skills teaching for the afternoon sessions.
  • TAs read one to one daily with identified Disadvantaged pupils for pupils who are unable to read regularly at home using Paired Reading intervention
  • TA and teachers have identified ‘target pupils both LA and HA as a focus during whole class learning
  • Teachers to have regular release to conference writing with LA/MA/HA pupils in Year 6 to give precise feedback at the point of learning.(Juniors)
  • Before school maths club with purchased maths APP and ipads, run by 2 TAs for identified pupils. (Juniors)
  • PP leads meet with staff regularly to review individual pen portraits.   Staff are challenged on interventions and progress reflecting on the impact.
  • PP Leads run PDMs to ensure all staff are focussing on rapid progress for ALL pupils within this group.
  • PP leads meet with teachers to update Pen portraits and ensuring children are being targeted correctly. 

6. Data driven and responding to evidence

At Shirley Infants and Juniors we believe that assessment is a continuous process integral to learning and teaching. It is how teachers gain knowledge of their pupils’ needs, achievements and abilities, enabling planning and delivery to be more effective, thereby raising attainment for every child.

Barriers to Learning:

  • Low prior attainment requires rapid progress in order to meet age related expectations
  • See barriers above in section 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Provision and Impact:

  • Pupil Premium leads have focused time to analyse disadvantage pupils data, support teachers through progress reviews and assessment surgeries, as well as develop year leaders of analysing vulnerable groupings.
  • Progress reviews held termly focuses on gaps in learning identified in gaps analysis and action plans identified actions.
  • Directed learning walks focussing on disadvantaged pupils, ‘Learning through the eyes of disadvantaged pupils’
  • HAMWIC review Day focuses on disadvantaged pupils and reviews staff knowledge, work scrutiny comparing PP with Non PP.
  • Year Leaders hold accountability for this group in their year groups.  Key planning opportunities and book scrutinies are carried out to ensure progress and rapid progress,

7. Clear, responsive leadership

Senior leaders and governors set ever higher aspirations and lead by example. They hold all staff accountable for raising attainment. Leaders share their thinking and invest wholeheartedly in continuing professional development. The school improvement plan is directly linked to performance management objectives to ensure high outcomes for all pupils. The school invites challenge through regular reviews from both the local authority and Hamwic Education Trust

Barriers to Learning:

  • Low prior attainment requires rapid progress in order to meet age-related expectations
  • See barriers above in section 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Provision and Impact:

  • Following training and research using the Sutton Trust, the schools have identified the school priorities including Basic Skills, continuing Pupil Premium Provision, SEND provision and interventions with a focus on more detailed tracking and maths.
  • Pupil Premium leads to review the effectiveness of pupil premium provision and ensure that interventions accelerate progress and diminish the difference rapidly
  • On a regular basis, SLT and LT observe disadvantaged pupils, scrutinise work, discuss learning interventions with teachers and ensure progress is evident.
  • Pen portraits are written for every disadvantaged pupil to track interventions and progress across both schools.