Donna Lee, Headteacher and Inclusion Coordinator at NACE member and Challenge Award-accredited school Nettlesworth Primary shares the school’s approach to ensuring the pupil premium is used to full effect.
At Nettlesworth Primary, we are committed to ensuring the teaching and learning opportunities we provide meet the needs of all pupils, including those of our most disadvantaged pupils.
We ensure appropriate provision is made for pupils who belong to vulnerable groups, focusing on adequately assessing and addressing their needs. These pupils benefit from individualised programmes based on an accurate understanding of what support best suits each pupil. Through this we aim to accelerate progress and overcome barriers to learning so that these pupils achieve similar outcomes to their peers, and to diminish the difference between those entitled to pupil premium (PP) funding and those who are not.
We focus on high-quality teaching and effective deployment of staff to support disadvantaged children. Following the national lockdown prompted by Covid-19, it is even more imperative that pupils are supported within school to ensure that any gaps in their knowledge can be addressed quickly and effectively, ensuring they have all the tools necessary to make progress.
All staff in school have contributed to the evaluation of the strategy. This has allowed a whole-school overview to be created, and has focused the attention of staff on the needs of the pupil premium children in their classes, those with the lowest levels of engagement during the pandemic, and those with the greatest recovery needs when returning to school.
Here are 10 approaches that have been key to ensuring effective use of pupil premium funding for all learners in our school, including more able disadvantaged learners:
1. Maximising staff performance and development
Systems and processes such as performance management and coaching are utilised to maximise employee performance. Through tackling underperformance, this secures defined and measurable outcomes through best use of time and efficacy. Performance management is integral to school improvement planning. Staff actively participate in the objective setting and review process, receiving effective feedback to progress priorities by tackling underperformance, celebrating success and developing human resource capacity through distributive leadership of priorities such as pupil premium, sport premium, special educational needs, and more able provision.
We emphasise the importance of ‘quality teaching first’ and aim to provide a consistently high standard through monitoring performance and tailoring teaching. External evidence is used alongside knowledge of our pupils to support our pupil premium strategy.
2. Investing in developing all staff members
We believe that using PP funding for CPD to ensure staff have the skills and training to take on more specialist roles brings the biggest impact. Investing in the development of staff such as teaching assistants and early career teachers leads to a higher level of expertise within the organisation. The creative use of human resources, in partnership with networking schools on a reciprocal basis, enables the development of a culture of mutual reliance and collective buy-in between the More Able Leads – learning from and with each other for mutual benefit for more able learners. This results in improvements in leadership knowledge, skills and behaviours, and improved attainment at greater depth against national comparatives.
3. Regular reports at governor meetings
Regular reports and attendance at governor meetings to update on progress helps to secure this focus within the organisation. Designated pupil premium governors and school leaders continually monitor the progress of the pupil premium strategy, adapting approaches when appropriate.
4. Committing to inclusive, flexible provision for all
We seek to be an inclusive school in which the curriculum is sufficiently flexible to fully match the individual learning needs of all children. Adopting an inclusive environment for all areas of our curriculum is essential to develop the needs of all our children. Our staff ensure that appropriate provision is made for all groups of children who belong to vulnerable groups. Our school has a whole-school ethos of attainment for all and views each pupil as an individual.
5. Pupil premium strategy shared with all staff members
The headteacher, in liaison with the Pupil Premium Lead, compiled and wrote the pupil premium strategy and shared it with the whole staff. Members of staff offered appropriate amendments to ensure all areas of the desired outcomes were met. The pupil premium lead then wrote an action plan to ensure the desired outcomes are achieved. This was then shared with all staff during a staff meeting. The strategy is reviewed each term.
6. Regularly updated pupil premium records
All teachers have a pupil premium file that clearly highlights all appropriate information regarding disadvantaged children, including more able learners, within their class. All staff are responsible for collating evidence for each child and continuously updating their files. The Pupil Premium Lead and Inclusion Coordinator monitor the files half-termly. These are very much working documents and staff utilise them to ensure an inclusive provision for our pupil premium children. The Pupil Premium Lead and Inclusion Coordinator track the progress of each disadvantaged child and create a termly overview for each file.
7. Planning for maximum progress in an inclusive environment
Teachers strategically plan, pitch, differentiate and deliver all lessons to ensure maximum progress is achieved in an inclusive environment. First-hand experiences are offered during each topic where the children can develop knowledge and skills. When developing our pupil premium strategy we take into account teachers’ feedback on pupils’ levels of engagement and participation, and their understanding of any challenges that disadvantaged pupils are facing.
8. Appropriate use of intervention groups
The Pupil Premium Lead liaises with the Inclusion Lead to devise appropriate intervention groups to ensure progression to diminish the gap in learning. Intervention groups include: Phonics, Reading, Maths, Lego Therapy, Breakfast Club, Tuition, Coordination Programmes and Nurturing. Each teaching assistant maintains an intervention file as a working document. These files are monitored every two weeks, and the progress of the children discussed with development points offered. The Pupil Premium Lead and Inclusion Coordinator monitor the progress of the disadvantaged children within these intervention groups. The Pupil Premium Lead, in collaboration with the Intervention Lead, delivered CPD to teaching assistants who deliver interventions to pupil premium groups, concentrating on activities, methods of recording, and introduction of a website page dedicated to pupil premium.
9. Mental health first aid
We have a member of staff who continues to develop her role within school of mental health first aider for any children who may be feeling vulnerable or have any worries or emotional issues which need support and intervention. We also have a group of children who are trained as mental health peers to support other children in the school. Many of these trained children are our more able disadvantaged learners. Staff have participated in training on highlighting strengths in pupils’ work and providing opportunities to raise their self-esteem within the classroom.
10. Increasing participation in enrichment activities
We seek to enable pupils to engage in school life fully, including support on healthy lifestyles and resources to access learning. We want children to be involved in enrichment within school, including accessing after-school clubs, visits and overnight residential trips. It is important to make decisions based on an understanding of individual pupils’ needs. Pupil premium funding is used to supplement and/or enhance educational visits and experiences across year groups, and to further target wider identified curriculum resources for pupil premium children across a variety of curriculum areas in order to aid children’s understanding, knowledge and key skills of development.
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