Overview
Catch-Up Funding is allocated by the Government for each Year 7 pupil who has not achieved the expected level in reading and/or maths at Key Stage 2 before they joined Hornchurch High School. We received an additional premium of £500 for each Year 7 pupil who did not achieve the expected level in reading and/or maths (maximum £500 per pupil) at Key Stage 2.
Expected level means any student who did not achieve the secondary ready scaled score of 100.
“The money is to be used by schools to deliver additional tuition or intensive support in small groups, giving pupils valuable support to bring them up to speed so that they are more likely to succeed at secondary school. The funding will not be ring-fenced for catch-up activities but we expect that this funding is used for additional literacy and numeracy catch-up during Year 7 given that this can make a critical difference to pupils at this important stage.” (DfE Website)
2018/2019 Funding
In 2018/19 Hornchurch High School received £8146 in Year 7 catch-up premium funding. The funding will be spent as follows:
- A Literacy coordinator will deliver a bespoke Reading Programme for the students identified as being behind in their Literacy.
- These students will be supported in small groups of no more than 5, and will have the opportunity to spend 10 weeks (one hour a week), improving their reading skills.
- Before they complete this 10 week programme, they will take a reading test and this will then be used to identify what areas of Literacy they are lacking in most greatly. There will also be an initial one-to-one session that will give these students an opportunity to read aloud in front of the Literacy coordinator to help select further areas of weakness.
- In small groups, students will then read a short story from the ‘Badger Collection’ of easy readers and this will allow students to gain the confidence to be able to read in front of others and help improve their verbal skills through their analysis of the text.
- Time will be spent focusing on devices, including learning to identify them and being able to discuss the effect on the reader. In addition to this, extra focus on vocabulary will made to help the students expand their vocabulary and thus improve the quality of their own writing and ability to interpret the writer’s choices.
- Grammar and sentence level work will also be completed to help consolidate the students’ learning during the 10 week programme.
- Before the end of the 10 week cycle, the students will then complete a reading comprehension test (based on their selected text) and also complete a new reading test to confirm that their reading ages have increased.
- Upper school Reading Mentors are also offered on a weekly basis where KS4 pupils support those in need with their reading. Part of the budget has been spent on purchasing motivating and engaging texts for the pupils to read and share with their mentors.
2017/18 Funding
In the 2017/18 financial year, Hornchurch High School (then The Albany School), were allocated £9382. The money was spent in virtually the same way with the provision of a Literacy coordinator running a 10- week intervention programme (as outlined above). The difference in this financial year was that the one-to one wasn’t in place at the start of this year and the students didn’t complete a reading comprehension assessment at the end of the programme. This was introduced at the start of 2018 and has been part of the Literacy provision since then.
Difference in Attainment
In a school year, three rounds of 10 week cycles of the programme are completed. After the completion of the programme (and after their Reading Ages have been re-tested), we have been able to see at that stage if it has made an improvement to their Reading Age. For the majority of the students tested, their Reading Ages do increase (and this is more than the actual time it has taken to complete the programme, e.g. 10 weeks/ almost 3 months). Overall the majority of students’ results achieved in their English Department assessments have also improved too, but this can be dependent on what topic is being covered at that point in the curriculum.
How the Effect was assessed
The way in which the effect of our programme was assessed, was through the second Reading Age recorded, by a Reading comprehension test that was conducted and by the results achieved in assessments that the students completed in their English lessons. The overall measure of success will be when students begin their KS4 curriculum and more concrete teacher predictions are made based on mock exams etc.
