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Year 7 Catch Up Funding

The literacy and numeracy catch-up premium gives schools additional funding to support Year 7 students who did not achieve at least Level 4 in reading and/or maths at the end of Key Stage 2 (KS2). Schools receive an additional £500 for each student who meets the criteria and are accountable for the effeciveness of how that money is spent on improving both the literacy and numeracy skills of their students in Year 7. All schools must publish an annual report detailing how this money is spent and include an assessment of the effectiveness of that spending.  

Year 7 Catch Up Funding Impact and Evaluation Report

Context

Carwarden House Community School is an 11‐19 special school serving north west Surrey and the surrounding areas, including four other local authorities. In August 2014 we converted from a local authority maintained school to an academy. We were inspected by Ofsted in January 2014 and judged to be a god school with outstanding behaviour and safety.  

Almost by definition all of our students joining us in Year 7 do not achieve Level 4 in any of their core subjects by the end of Year 6 and are, therefore, all entitled to the catch up funding.

Objectives of Year 7 Catch Up Funding

Given that there is no gap to narrow between this cohort and the rest of the year group - they are the year group – the funding is used to improve the rate of attainment of these students as they are already significantly behind the rest of their peers who are in mainstream schools.

We also aim to raise the self‐esteem and aspirations of students entitled to Catch Up Premium as difficulties in literacy and numeracy undoubtedly impact negatively on their ability to be independent in adult life.

We also aim to enhance existing provision by improving resources and investing in staff development.

Amount of Year 7 Catch Up Funding Received

Number of children who did not achieve at least Level 4 in reading and/or mathematics at Key Stage 2

13

Year 7 Catch Up Funding Pupil Allocation

£500

 

Total Year 7 Catch Up Funding Grant

£6,500

Summary of Year 7 Catch Up Funding Spend

The size of the Year 7 group and the complexity of their needs meant that we decided to spend all of the money in 2014-15 on extra staff support for specific English and maths lessons, one-to-one interventions and cross-curricular literacy and numeracy support in other lessons.

Other strategies deployed to support Year 7 (funded from Pupil Premium)

In addition the school invested in training for the Numbers Count programme for focused and intensive catch up work with individual students. Unfortunately the member of staff was unable to attend the second year of the programme, following a very successful first year, due to an accident in the October half-term.

The school also purchased a suite of Read Write Inc. resources including reading books and further materials. Both the numeracy and literacy resources weren’t specific either to Year 7, but instead benefitted all year groups in the school.

Record of Year 7 Catch Up Funding Spend by item / project

Details

Cost

Outcome

Recruitment of extra staff to support English, maths and cross-curricular literacy and numeracy.

£15,758 in total.

Proportion contributing to literacy and numeracy equates to £7,091.

English

Six students achieved the academic targets set for them*.

Seven exceeded the academic targets set for them*.

Maths

12 students achieved the academic targets set for them*.

One student exceeded the academic target set for them*.

* Academic targets are set using the DfE’s Progression Guidance Project data sets. The school ensures that we use the upper quartile predictors to ensure that we set stretching targets for our students that support our high expectations and strong aspirations for our students. The projections are based on the age and prior attainment of students and are not influenced by specific needs of students.