Pupil Premium

Pupil Premium

Pupil Premium was introduced in April 2011 and is paid by means of a specific grant for any students who have been registered as eligible for Free School Meals within the last six years or those who are looked after (LAC) or previously looked after (PLAC) by the Local Authority. A premium has also been introduced for children whose parents are currently serving in the armed forces. This group of students is currently referred to as “disadvantaged students (DS).” The grant is not ring-fenced. The grant is able to be spent at the school’s discretion with the aim being to improve outcomes for students subject to Pupil Premium and to narrow the gap between Pupil Premium students and their non PP peers.

Pupil premium strategy statement – Sponne School

This statement details our school’s use of pupil premium (and recovery premium for the 2021 to 2022 academic year) funding to help improve the attainment of our disadvantaged pupils.

It outlines our pupil premium strategy, how we intend to spend the funding in this academic year and the effect that last year’s spending of pupil premium had within our school.

School overview

Funding overview

Part A: Pupil premium strategy plan

Statement of intent

At Sponne we are committed to closing the gap between students deemed disadvantaged and their peers. We recognise that there is no such thing as a typical disadvantaged child.

Through our ethos of Dream, Believe, Achieve we aim to inspire achievement and ensure our students have a wide range of opportunities open to them to become the best version of themselves, reaching their full potential.

Our current pupil premium strategy plan aims to remove barriers that inhibit progress towards achieving this ultimate goal.

Key principles include:

• Quality First teaching and access to enhancement activities to enrich learning.
• A comprehensive support network of key colleagues to address pastoral and academic areas for support and development that are identified on an individual basis and recorded in the digest pages.These colleagues are solution focussed, identifying and removing (as far as possible) any barriers to learning and progress for this group of students.
• Fluidity of response to emerging individuals needs to create a tailored support package for DS students.
• Ambition and high aspiration for this group of students.

Challenges 

This details the key challenges to achievement that we have identified among our disadvantaged pupils.

Intended outcomes

This explains the outcomes we are aiming for by the end of our current strategy plan, and how we will measure whether they have been achieved.

Activity in this academic year

This details how we intend to spend our pupil premium (and recovery premium funding) this academic year to address the challenges listed above.

Teaching (for example, CPD, recruitment and retention)

Budgeted cost: £12,991

Targeted academic support (for example, tutoring, one-to-one support structured interventions)

Budgeted cost: £80392 (3 FPC) + £12760 recovery funding

Wider strategies (for example, related to attendance, behaviour, wellbeing)

Budgeted cost: £14568 (house + APLL) + £2964

Total budgeted cost: £123,675

Part B: Review of outcomes in the previous academic year

Pupil premium strategy outcomes

This details the impact that our pupil premium activity had on pupils in the 2020 to 2021 academic year.

The pupil premium funding was spent on a range of academic, pastoral, wider curriculum and enhancement focus areas.

Focus Area 1: Raising the attainment of our DS students in Maths, English and Science ensuring more students get level 4s and 5s or above.

All students in yr 11 sat assessments to generate Teacher Assessed Grades.The TAG data demonstrated that the 2021 cohort of DS students (compared to previous DS cohorts) had a Progress 8 score the closest to 0 than in previous year (-0.19)

The number of DS students achieving 4+ in Eng/Maths is on an upward trajectory (76%), compared to  66.7% (2020) and 52.6% (2019)

Similarly, the number of DS students achieving 5+ in Eng/Maths is (48%), compared to  51.9% (2020) and 31.6% (2019)

In Science, the percentage of DS students achieving 4+ in 2 Sciences was 68% in 2021, an improving picture from 2020 (66.7) and 2019 (47.4).

The following strands of activity have contributed to this success:

• All teachers have access to continuing CPD which focuses on Sponne’s key priorities for effective teaching and learning. Although this was more difficult due to the disruption of the pandemic, CPD was converted to the online platform through webinars and other training events such as a trust presentation by Tom Sherrington, recovery curriculum and focusing on the schools teaching and learning priorities of high expectations, questioning, retrieval and feedback, practise. In addition to this a Teaching and Learning newsletter was created by our Teaching & Learning Lead sharing good practice. Staff also contributed to this.
• FPCs are in place in the core subjects to enhance learning and provide targeted support in and out of the classroom. FPCs are in place in the core subjects. During lockdown they were in school working with different year groups supporting our DS and vulnerable students. This enabled them to form positive relationships and have a greater understanding of barriers to learning of individuals. Our hardest to reach students had additional support through the wellbeing team, these have been highlighted by PLLs and this information has been passed to subject teachers to inform their planning and support for these students moving forwards. FPC’s ran revision sessions in the run up to the final assessments.
•  All Pupil Premium students are provided with learning resources including revision guides and revision cards to extend learning.This happened at the beginning of the year before any lockdowns and ensured students were not disadvantaged. Students who were not in school had theirs posted home. Students also had access to the google classroom revision materials.
• In KS3 the Accelerated Reader scheme provides personalised goals, monitors progress and  tracks students’ mastery of reading skills.The Fresh Start group designed to give additional support to the students whose reading ages are below their age when they come to us in year 7 contains 24 students. 7 of these were DS, all DS students made progress with their reading through the scheme with 4 students making significant gains in the RA score of 1-3 years.

Focus Area 2 Implement strategies post lockdown and in the event of any school closures so that our DS students are not unfairly disadvantaged and still have access to the opportunities open to them.

The following strands of activity have contributed to this success:

• Provide students with the necessary resources including access to IT and give students opportunities to complete and catch up on work in line with their peers. All DS students who needed laptops were provided with them, Year 11 were prioritised, 1 SIM card was handed to a Year 10 DS student who needed it.
• Allocate students with a key member of staff to work closely with to support their wellbeing and their transition back to school including the implementation of the recovery curriculum. Vulnerable students were identified by the pastoral team and they were checked in regularly through remote learning classrooms. Where students may have struggled in lockdown once we returned to school they engaged with their learning.
• To support students with additional learning needs as highlighted by PLLs and APLLs.Students with additional needs were discussed in pastoral meetings, FPC meetings and Faculty meetings and these concerns were passed to APLLs for action.

Focus Area 3: Bespoke pastoral support that focuses on significant non-academic barriers to success in school including  behaviour, attendance and the social and emotional wellbeing of the child to maximise their success.

The following strands of activity have contributed to this success:

• Through an extensive pastoral support system there are a number of experienced members of staff who work closely with parents and students to support our students every step of their academic journey at Sponne. These include staff in the House Team, the Parent Support Advisor, the Pastoral Support Coordinator, the Learning Mentor and the Assistant Progress Learning Leaders (APLL). As well as this we recognised that students did not have access to the same level of support during remote learning so in addition to being invited in, all students had access to our wellbeing classrooms giving them links to other agencies and support networks.
• We work alongside a range of outside agencies to form a collegiate approach to supporting students including CAMHS, the School Nursing team and EIP, CIRV, .
• Attendance and Behaviour are carefully tracked and monitored and if required support is put in place. Data from last year shows that our rewards are in line with the % of DS students we have across the school but DS students last year contributed to approximately 25% of all sanctions. When this is analysed further out of 30 students who rank in the highest sanctions list only 4 of these are DS.
• Track students' emerging needs and the impact of these as they move through Years 7-11.