Pupil Premium

At St Mary's Catholic Academy, we strive to provide the highest Catholic education for all pupils, we do this through putting Christ's Mission at the heart of all that we do. To all of us we place the upmost importance in our Mission to have:

Like St Mary, faith-filled we say Yes to God's call to Love and Serve Him and one another.

We aim to follow our motto of, Love and Serve to ensure that we have the highest expectations for all our children, ensuring that each child reaches their full potential, academically, socially and spiritually. In order to do this, we engage in a range of strategies to issue challenge at an appropriate level, and provide support to overcome barriers to learning. We provide a rich and broadly balanced curriculum, which makes an exceptional contribution to pupils’ outcomes, and with individualised learning so that children are engaged and achieve exceptionally well now, and at the next stage of their education and in adult life.

Pupil Premium Funding (PPF) is a government initiative that targets extra funding at pupils from deprived backgrounds. Research shows that pupils from deprived backgrounds underachieve compared to their non-deprived peers. The premium is provided to enable these pupils to be supported to reach their potential. The Government has used pupils entitled to free school meals (FSM), looked after children and service children as indicators of deprivation, and have provided a fixed amount of money for schools per pupil based on the number of pupils registered for FSM over a rolling six year period. We will be using the indicator of those eligible for FSM as well as identified vulnerable groups as our target children to ‘close the gap’ regarding attainment.

By following the key principles below, we believe we can maximise the impact of our Pupil Premium spending:

Identification of Pupils
We will ensure that:

– All teaching staff and support staff are involved in the identification of pupil premium and vulnerable children
– All teaching staff and school governors are involved in the analysis of data

Analysing Data
We will ensure that:

– All staff are involved in the analysis of school data so that they are fully aware of strengths and weaknesses across the school
– We use research (Such as the Education Endowment Fund) to support us in determining the strategies that will be most effective in closing the gap and raising the attainment and progress of our children

Ongoing Improvement of Teaching and Learning
We will ensure that:

– All children receive daily access to good teaching and increase the percentages of outstanding lessons across the school
– We set high expectations of all our children
– We continue to improve assessment through levelling, cross MAC moderation.
– Teachers use analysis of class data to plan specifically for the strengths and areas to develop for their children to ensure optimum progress and attainment
– We continue to share good practice through modelled lessons, INSET, external training providers and provide high quality CPD for all teaching and support staff

Provision and Individualised Support
We will ensure that provision is made that:

– Facilitates each pupil’s access to education and the curriculum
– Looking at the individual needs of each child and identifying their barriers to learning
– Tailoring interventions to the specific learning needs of that child
– In particular, provides small group work and 1: 1 teaching with our support staff focused on overcoming barriers and gaps in pupils’ learning and accelerating progress and attainment
– Provide earlier interventions at EYFS & KS1 to remove/prevent barriers to learning
– Match the skills of support staff to the interventions they provide
– Ensures teaching and support staff have regular opportunities to communicate about their children and evaluate progress
– Alternative support, intervention and expertise from outside agencies is accessed and fully utilised
– Support the funding of enrichment opportunities and educational visits to enhance pupils’ learning opportunities – outside the classroom
– Continues to improve attendance and punctuality to maximise learning time
– Providing support for parents and carers to support their children’s learning within the curriculum e.g. Maths, RWI Phonics and Reading interventions in school.