“We have already made significant progress towards closing the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers. This additional funding will ensure teachers continue to have the resources they need to give all pupils the best possible start at school, regardless of their background.” – Rt Hon David Laws (2014) Press Release, www.gov.uk
Key Facts & Principles
Pupil Premium funding is provided for children who are considered to be disadvantaged, namely:
East Barnet School implements strategies and interventions which target all students who are identified as underachieving, particularly those in receipt of the Pupil Premium. We do not overtly single out disadvantaged students as this could impact negatively on their self-esteem.
The Pupil Premium was introduced in April 2011, and is paid to schools each year by means of a specific grant based on January school census figures.
As an academy, East Barnet School receives the Pupil Premium via the Education Funding Agency.
Local authorities are responsible for looked after children in care and make payments where an eligible looked after child is on roll. East Barnet School receives funding from Barnet and other local authorities for looked after children.
The Pupil Premium is allocated to schools each financial year, but funding unspent at 31st March may be carried forward to the next financial year.
To find out more information about Free School Meals, please look at our Parent/Carer page.
The government is providing additional funding to schools, colleges and 16-19 providers for small group tuition in English, Mathematics and other subjects that have suffered disruption to learning by Coronavirus (COVID-19).
East Barnet School is eligible to receive £6927 from this fund and will use it to focus on our 16-19 students who have not yet achieved a grade 4 or 5 in English and/or Mathematics. We have identified six students who fit this category for English tuition and 14 students for Mathematics. Two of these students will be tutored for both English and Mathematics.
Tuition
The school received a grant of £54,606 for running a 1 week summer school in August. The total number of students attending was 154; 111 of which were Year 6 students transitioning to East Barnet School in September, the remainder being 37 Year 7 students moving into Year 8.
Through research and national data, the school identified that students were lagging behind primarily in Maths, but with English being a core subject, we considered it prudent to ensure intervention were carried out in both of these areas. The majority of the funding was therefore used to pay staff to provide additional subject support in English and Maths.
The school also believe in developing the whole person so each afternoon students participated in an Expressive Arts activity which included African drumming, screen printing and Drama workshops to name a few. Funding was used to pay for staff and some external providers to run these activities.
The government announced funding to support students to catch-up lost time after school closures. Schools are able to use the funding for specific activities to support their students in-line with curriculum expectations.
School funding allocations are calculated on a per-student basis from the October 2020 school census. The government has announced that mainstream schools will get £80 for each student up to Year 11.
EBS will receive £90,120.
The staff at EBS are best placed to know the support that the students require. Much thought has gone in to the number of initiatives that have been chosen to maximise the funding that we are receiving from the government.
Between January and August, the school have acquired additional teachers in core subjects to enable support for all students to raise attainment, but also those that have substantially fallen behind during the national lockdown period.
We have increased the hours of our Educational Welfare Officer to support families through home liaison, focusing on wellbeing and participation. We have also increased funding in Careers to offer virtual tailored experiences.
We have employed a Virtual Tutor to support students with regular check-ins and basic numeracy and literacy support. The Virtual Tutor has supported isolated and shielding students since before the second national lockdown.
We will use our internal data from termly reports to assess the impact of progress, attainment and attendance. We will use our autumn term report as a baseline and compare this to our spring and summer reports paying particular attention to how their current and predicted grades change as well as current attendance. If we do not see the desired outcome, we will tweak our programme of support to ensure progress is seen.
The DfE have announced that the Literacy & Numeracy Catch-up Funding will not be available past the 2019-20 academic year, and therefore we will not be reporting on any future plans with this particular premium, however we will leave the information on our website.
“The government is providing a literacy and numeracy catch-up premium for Year 7 pupils who have failed to reach level 4 in reading and/or mathematics – the 2 most important skills for life.” – Department for Education (2014) Press Release, www.gov.uk
The amount of funding each year was based upon the autumn school census and KS2 National Curriculum assessments. The grant was spent for the educational benefit of students.
Past Three Years of Funding:
| 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | |
| Amount of Funding Available | £10,335 | £10,335 | £9,172 |
Specific areas where funding was implemented:
Impact on targeted students attainment in 2020-21:
In English there were 28 students targeted: 15 of these students made progress in English by the end of Year 7, with progress measured through the KS3 learning ladder.
In Mathematics 23 students were targeted: all students made progress in at least 1 out of 4 of the Mathematical areas assessed: Numbers, Geometry, Algebra, Data. 17 made progress in at least 2 out of 4 areas, 10 in at least 3 out of 4, and 1 student made progress in all 4 areas. Progress was measured though the KS3 Learning Ladder.
Students identified as needing further support have access to a range of support in Year 8 (see provision map through Additional Educational Needs).