(This funding no longer exists as of September 2020)

The allocation and impact of Year 7 catch up funding

2019-20
One of our school improvement priorities is reading and we will allocate the funds we receive in March 2020. We have purchased First news so that all classes have a newspaper each week – the proportion of this spent to ensure that all Y7 leaners have access is approx. £130.
We have created a full time intervention post to ensure that both Literacy and Numeracy interventions can be set up for learners who need support, either on a specific skill, topic or concept or more generally; often needing to overcome a confidence barrier before taking a risk with an answer.
We have also purchased IDL Numeracy for Key Stage 3 (£399), as well as keeping the Literacy programme (£199) as the gains have been impressive.

 

2018-19
We received £1,500 for the year.
As the emotional needs of our learners were being increasingly met through the learning environment, class teams and specialist teachers we were able to increase the number of days available for Literacy and Numeracy Intervention.
We were able to timetable a 4^th Literacy group for our weakest learners in Years 7 and 8 so that with 3 classes and  4 teachers  we could provide intensive differentiated high quality teaching in lessons as well as additional intervention if necessary.
IDL literacy (£199) continued to be an effective tool for personalised programmes and intervention.
Numeracy Intervention was maintained at two days on a “withdrawal” basis and also included a lunch club. Maths lessons on Fridays were designated as “Using and Applying” lessons and were extremely active sessions, both inside and outside the building.

 

 

2017-18
We received £2,250 for the year.
We invested £900 on dyslexia and dyscalculia testing software and associated staff training. This will further refine our interventions.  Spelling is a top priority for our learners who can often read text but are unable to fully decode what it means or spell key words in a range of lessons.
We subscribed to IDL literacy for £199.
We were able to allocate a Higher Level Teaching Assistant to numeracy intervention for two days a week.

 

2016 -17
We received £1,625 for the year.
The appointment of Literacy and Numeracy lead practitioners enabled us to introduce simple base line testing for all pupils, not just those below expectations in Y7. The baselining gave us reliable data and the interventions significant impact.
The impact has that we have been able to target support to meet specific need. (1 day a week of a TA timetabled for Numeracy (Tuesday) and Literacy (Wednesday) interventions). Additional targeted spending on later KS2 early KS3 practical resources for Maths has been beneficial in engaging learners and showing the applications and practical side to mathematics.

An extensive new reading scheme (c £2,000)and creating a library of new fiction reading books (c £1,000) has given us impressive data for gains in reading ages. All reading books were assessed for reading ages and catalogued by a colour code that enabled children to progress without explicitly knowing their reading age. The books cover the full range of reading ages; children with a reading age less than 10 are supported with the reading schemes.

 There were 13 year 7 who were in school in Sept 2016.

Over the year their average

Reading age went from 10.5-12.0             An average gain of 1yr 7 months in the 10 months Sept 16 to June 17

Spelling age went from 10.6-11.3              Average gain 9 months

Maths age went from 6.8 to 9.5                 Average gain 2 years 9 months

 

2015 – 16 – our first year
We received a sum of £2,500 to support Year 7 children who had not reached the expected standard in reading or maths in their summer assessments.

We were immediately able to provide smaller class sizes and 1-1 or 2-1 support as part of our provision. Therefore this additional funding was spent on resources (including laptops available to each child as necessary) enabling us to facilitate more interest in their work in lessons.

This included:
Class sets of reading texts – Barnaby Brocket, Holes and titles by Tom Gates that have a variety of fonts and icons in to break away from traditional formatting.
Practical resources for English e.g. conversation cubes, story writing prompts and Eye level reading rulers.
Practical maths resources e.g. sand timers, calculators, tape measures, sorting games, Uno, playing cards, dice, 2D and 3D shapes, memory games, interlocking and  fraction cubes.

Data for these children during the year showed better than expected progress in reading (1.1 years) although their improvements were most notable in attendance, well being and self regulation in a new educational setting.