This statement details our school’s use of pupil premium (and recovery premium for the 2022 to 2023 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.
The total budgeted cost is £134,640.
School overview
School name
Marden Primary Academy
Number of pupils in school
280
Proportion (%) of pupil premium eligible pupils
29% (80)
Academic year/years that our current pupil premium strategy plan covers (3 year plans are recommended)
1 Year
Date this statement was published
September 2022
Date on which it will be reviewed
August 2023
Statement authorised by
Mr Niall Dosad
Pupil premium lead
Mrs Nicola Bryant
Governor / Trustee lead
Mrs Debbie Biggenden
Funding Overview
Pupil premium funding allocation this academic year
£121,880
Recovery premium funding allocation this academic year
£12,760
Pupil premium funding carried forward from previous years (enter £0 if not applicable)
£0
Total budget for this academic year
£134,640
Statement of intent
Pupil Premium is a government-funded resource paid to schools to meet the needs of disadvantaged pupils. Any pupil who is eligible for Free School Meals now, or has been eligible in the previous 6 years, will receive funding. The funding is also provided to meet the needs of children in care of the Local Authority, children who have recently been adopted from care and children of Service families. The funding paid for each of these groups is different and varies year on year.
Who is eligible for Pupil Premium?
- Children in the Armed Forces Personnel
- Looked After Children
- Children adopted from care or who have left care
Children can have free school meals and are eligible for Pupil Premium if they receive any of the following:
- Income support
- Income-Based Jobseekers Allowance
- Income Related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA
- Support under part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
- Child Tax Credit provided you are not entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual income that does not exceed £16,190
- The guaranteed element of Pension Credit
Why Is Pupil Premium Important?
Nationally, there is a strong link between economic disadvantage and poor achievement in schools. Across the country, there is a significant gap between the progress made by pupils eligible for free school meals and those who are not eligible. There are many reasons why this gap exists. Pupil Premium is given to schools to help us try to close this gap. It is important because it enables us to counteract the disadvantages that poverty imposes on children. It ensures we can put the support in place to help every child in our school thrive and fully master each stage of the curriculum.
Pupil Premium Pupils at Marden Primary Academy
Marden Primary Academy is a school with 29% of its cohort defined as disadvantaged. The main barriers that disadvantaged pupils face are outlined below:
- Limited opportunities to have literacy and writing skills developed and extended outside of school
- Limited opportunities for exploring their community and the wider world
- Parental and community perceptions of the value of education
Key Improvement Priorities to close or significantly diminish the gap between pupil premium children and non-pupil premium pupils are:
- To improve attendance and punctuality for all pupils to access the curriculum
- To improve access for children to experience enrichment opportunities in the wider world, before, during and after school
- To close the attainment gaps and strive to ensure all pupils have the best outcomes possible
Challenges
This details the key challenges to achievement that we have identified among our disadvantaged pupils.
Challenge 1
Attendance and punctuality
Challenge 2
To close learning gaps and strive to ensure pupils all have the best outcomes possible
Challenge 3
Ensuring that pupils have full access to a rich and engaging curriculum
Challenge 4
SEMH challenges
Challenge 5
Financial challenges faced by families due to cost of living increases
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.
Intended Outcome
Success Criteria
Improve attendance and punctuality for PP children.
- Improve absence which is at least in line with national and all other pupils.
- Improve persistent absence at least in line with national averages and all other pupils
Close the attainment gap for PP children across the school.
Smaller class sizes to improve child to adult ratio. This will mean that there is more opportunity for bespoke target teaching to close the gap for PP pupils.
Develop curriculum framework which delivers transdisciplinary learning.
- Become an IB world school
- Deliver learning across the school through the Primary Years Program framework
For PP children with a range of Social Emotional Mental Health challenges to have the resources they need to help them progress.
Children to have access to resources and technology that supports their development.
To ensure that all children can access all aspects of school life regardless of cost.
- We will support with uniform where applicable
- We will subsidise access to curricular and non-curricular opportunities to ensure there is equality of access
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: £46,684
Teacher £39,972.
Evidence that supports this approach
Great capacity for interventions and smaller class sizes have a positive impact on results. This additional teacher will ensure class sizes of an average of 24 per class.
Challenge number(s) addressed
2
Nurture Group Assistant & associated CPD (NurtureUK & Boxall Profile) £6,712
Evidence that supports this approach
Social and emotional learning approaches have a positive impact, on average, of 4 months additional progress in academic outcomes over the course of an academic year.
Challenge number(s) addressed
2, 4
Targeted academic support (for example, tutoring, one-to-one support structured interventions)
Budgeted cost: £47,400
LSA £18,950
Evidence that supports this approach
Supporting children within class for everyday intervention has an impact not only academically, but also supports social skills
Challenge number(s) addressed
2
ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support Assistant) training programme and resources
£3,600
Evidence that supports this approach
SEMH interventions have an identifiable and valuable impact on attitudes to learning and social relationships in school. They also have an average overall impact of four months’ additional progress on attainment.
Challenge number(s) addressed
2, 4
Play Therapist £2,560
Evidence that supports this approach
SEMH interventions have an identifiable and valuable impact on attitudes to learning and social relationships in school. They also have an average overall impact of four months’ additional progress on attainment.
Challenge number(s) addressed
2, 4
PYP Curriculum Development £6,100
Evidence that supports this approach
The impact of collaborative approaches on learning is consistently positive. Effective collaborative learning requires much more than just sitting pupils together and asking them to work in a group; structured approaches with well-designed tasks lead to the greatest learning gains. Approaches which promote talk and interaction between learners tend to result in the best gains. Studies consistently find that digital technology is associated with moderate learning gains: on average, an additional four months’ progress.
Challenge number(s) addressed
3
Library £5,000
Evidence that supports this approach
To add to the Trust grants of decodable books and KS2 texts, we are investing in our library equipment to create a stimulating reading area to promote reading for PP children.
Challenge number(s) addressed
3
Speech & Language Link Licences & Resourcing £1,084
LSA to lead and deliver £10,106
Evidence that supports this approach
- This resource can be used by children independently to help them access learning in class via the use of technology
- The LSA proportion of salary has been determined based on the amount of time to deliver the support across the school
Challenge number(s) addressed
4
Wider strategies (for example, related to attendance, behaviour, wellbeing)
Budgeted cost: £40,556
School Uniform £2,500
Evidence that supports this approach
Finances should not be a barrier to all children being able to access education in full school uniform
Challenge number(s) addressed
5
Wraparound Care £6,000
Evidence that supports this approach
We will support working families with wrap-around care if applicable. Attendance at breakfast club provides children with a stable start to the school day which allows them to engage with their learning.
Challenge number(s) addressed
5
Trips, clubs, events £5,000
Evidence that supports this approach
Finances should not be a barrier to all children being able to access all aspects of school life
Challenge number(s) addressed
5
Attendance support £17,056
Evidence that supports this approach
If children are not at school, they will fall further behind. Investing in staffing and intervention to support all learners accessing school is imperative. This will be an aspect of the Inclusion Lead’s salary where there are designated tasks to focus solely on attendance.
Challenge number(s) addressed
1
Additional resources £10,000
Evidence that supports this approach
As the year progresses there will be an accessibility fund that can be accessed to support the ongoing needs of PP children
Challenge number(s) addressed
1, 2, 3, 4 and 5
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 2021 to 2022 academic year.
Teaching (for example, CPD, recruitment and retention)
Budgeted cost: £49,568
Reading
Target
- To achieve 85% ARE in Reading
- Previous Yr: 65%
Target Date
June 2022
Reviewed (*unvalidated data)
Achieved 74% ARE*
PPG Reviewed Data
Achieved 75% ARE*
Writing
Target
- To achieve 85% ARE in Writing
- Previous Yr: 57%
Target Date
June 2022
Reviewed (*unvalidated data)
Achieved 79% ARE*
PPG Reviewed Data
Achieved 87.5% ARE*
Progress in Mathematics
Target
- To achieve 80% ARE in Maths
- Previous Yr: 68%
Target Date
June 2022
Reviewed (*unvalidated data)
Achieved 84% ARE*
PPG Reviewed Data
Achieved 75% ARE*
Combined
Target
- To achieve 75% ARE in Reading
- Previous Yr: 59%
Target Date
June 2022
Reviewed (*unvalidated data)
Achieved 66% ARE*
PPG Reviewed Data
Achieved 62.5% ARE*
In 2019 the combined score was 30% which is a demonstrable improvement.
Targeted academic support (for example, tutoring, one-to-one support structured interventions)
Budgeted cost: £44,360
Priority 2
Activity
- LSA
- Supporting children within class for everyday intervention has an impact not only academically, but also supports social skills
Reviewed
LSA supported children with SEMH needs. We found that after the pandemic there had been an acute rise in children note coping socially and emotionally. The LSA had a full timetable of interventions to support children across all phases of the school.
With a number of our children there emotional regulation was affecting their attendance. This intervention saw this anxiety decrease and over time they were able to attend school on time and enter through the school gate in a calm manner. Out of the 23 children that took part in this intervention 18 children made progress.
Priority 3
Activity
- PYP curriculum development
- Toddle App
- Decodable books
- Technology
Reviewed
The PYP has enabled our learners to have access to a contemporary, transdisciplinary curriculum. The IB PYP is internationally renowned and has a proven track record. Our results are better than pre-pandemic levels across the school.
All children now have access to decodable books within school and as home readers. This is fundamental to support their ability to read independently.
This has had an incredible impact on results in both GLD and phonics, see table 1 & 2.
Priority 4
Activity
- Speech & Language Link Licences & Resourcing
Reviewed
This assessment allows us to fully support any child across the school with both speech and language concerns. This is a screening we use for all EYFS children coming into school. This allows us to support the child with speech and language skills to follow a rigid programme to ensure progress is made.
Over the course of the year, 15 children completed the programme and no longer need intervention. 11 children made significant progress and 10 children are ongoing with their speech support. 10 children were referred for further speech and language support through Speech and Language Therapy (SALT).
Table 1 – Phonics Screen (% of whole cohort)
2021
40
2022
42
LAT
690
2021
73%
2022
81%
LAT
77%
2021
37
2022
41
LAT
69
2021
78%
2022
98%
LAT
88%
Table 2 – EYFS
2021
58%
2022
75%
LAT
77%
Wider strategies (for example, related to attendance, behaviour, wellbeing)
Budgeted cost: £28,995
Priority 1
Activity
- Attendance Support
Reviewed
We hired an additional admin assistant to support the office in dealing with attendance and punctuality issues. We created a new policy, which involved first day calling, letter triggers, attendance meetings with attendance lead, statutory attendance meetings, penalty fines etc.
The attendance support has meant we have been able to hold structured planned attendance meetings, it has allowed to meet on a weekly basis and discuss next steps which in turn has lead to AS1 refs and PW5 being completed with a quick turnaround.
This has allowed us focused time to really push forward with ensuring every child attends the school on a daily basis. Having support has also meant that where needed home visits have taken place. Having time has let to the use of a clear tracking system that has been used to guide extra support from outside agencies.
Our attendance for PP children was 88% but with key 5 children removed who did not engage with the process our attendance would be 90%
Priority 5
Activity
- School uniform support
- Wrap around care
- Trips, clubs and events
Reviewed
Over the course of the year we supported families with uniform, including pe kit and equipment. All members of the Marden community are in full uniform as a result. 12 children were purchased full uniforms, including duplicates.
The numbers of children attending wrap around care increased by 34% as a result of subsidy. This was a tool also used to support improving attendance.
All children were provided with the means to attend all trips, clubs and events. No child was excluded throughout the year based on finance. We did this by subsidising the overall cost for all children.
All
Activity
–
Reviewed
From January we contracted a play therapist to work with disadvantaged students throughout the school 1 full day per week. This has been incredibly well received and has supported the mental health of some of our most vulnerable children.
5 children have access to this service, all of who are a high priority. As a school we wanted to offer them some stability in their lives and some consistency. All of the children have a difficult home life and therefore present different behaviours within school. For at least 4 out of 5 their attendance improved. All 5 appear calmer and now have go-to strategies to support when they are feeling stressed.
Attendance:
- 70% – 81.5%
- 76% – 87%
COVID Catch-Up Funding Review
Academic Year 2021-22
Total funded through COVID catch-up fund:
£11,998
Review of expenditure
We utilised the funding to top up the 25% shortfall from Tutor-led funding
We utilised the expenditure by bringing in a fully qualified teacher 5 mornings per week. They worked with KS1 and LKS2 predominantly supporting those who had significant gaps in their learning due to the pandemic. Small group phonics sessions happened daily and this intervention supported 81% of Year 1 children pass their phonics screening and 98% of children in Year 2. This also supported 78% of students in Year 2 achieving ARE+.
For children who had significant gaps in reading in LKS2, they had daily interventions also for reading.
This catch up funding also allowed for small group maths sessions with KS1, working with short interventions with core skills such as times tables, place value and pre-teaching future content. This supported 76% reaching ARE+ at the end of KS1 in Maths.