Pupil Premium

Foxfield School’s use of Pupil Premium funding 2020/2021 and 2021/2022

Pupil Premium funding given to Foxfield for the financial year 2020/2021 = £49620

In June 2020 the Governing Board agreed the focus of their spending of the Pupil Premium Funding (PPF) for the financial year. Governors received positive feedback at the previous Pupils and Curriculum Committee meeting. As a result the Headteacher proposed the continuation of some of the previous PPF work undertaken along with some amended approaches to build on and improve work begun in the areas of sensory support and communication.

The past year has been extremely challenging for pupils throughout the school. The PPF interventions in school that support the development of targeted pupils’ literacy and reading skills are well established but unfortunately COVID has had an impact on progress. The biggest impact upon our pupils has been remote learning and this has also resulted in a need for additional behaviour support and emotional literacy sessions.

Evaluation of the use of Pupil Premium at Foxfield School in 2020/21 and work undertaken is as follows:

1. Over the past year staff have had to work extremely hard due to COVID to help support our pupils. Working across the school was impacted due to restrictions but staff completed some good work in the areas of sensory, reading and behaviour. There is still an enormous amount of work to help aid pupil recovery post lockdown. As a school we invested into equipment from Tina Rae to support teachers awareness in trauma.
2. £32621 was spent to fund the costs of three Level 3 Teaching Assistants who provided individual support for specific pupils who needed additional help in developing their reading skills or their behaviour. This has been a great tool this year to help aid pupils back into school, especially the nurture sessions with Claire. Behaviour support also worked across the school on individual programmes and strategies with pupils. Evidence of progression and the reduction in incidents of challenging behaviour demonstrate the impact of this.
3. To also improve behaviour and support pupil regulation across the school we have used the PPF to invest in some of our own teachers (10 days) in supporting behaviour and sensory across the school.
4. Due to COVID we have been unable to implement Shine Therapy within school this year, but instead of purchasing their services we have worked with both the music and art therapist to implement a therapist approach within school. We also bought in whole school training from Barry Carpenter, which explored the brain and engagement for learning helping to up skill staff.
5. Gavin Attwood as the Sensory Leader was released from class to implement sensory diets across the whole school. Gavin worked with individual class teams to offer support and also help to create sensory diets. He delivered training to all staff over 4 weeks with the support of our behaviour coordinator. Gavin also supported in some classes but due to COVID this has been limited.
6. Michelle Ijewsky, Head of Communication has been released for 12 days from her normal teaching timetable to enable her to work with pupils, classes and staff across the school to continue implementing the whole school communication plan and strategy. Unfortunately for most of the school year she was unable to work in partnership with the Language Assistant and the Health funded Speech and Language Therapist. Since the beginning of April this has been more successful, but they are still working through a number of pupils, as Speech and language was absent from school for more than a year.
7. As in previous years it was agreed to use the balance from the PPF to maintain the school’s position that extra curricular activities and opportunities are accessible to all pupils and no child will be prevented from participating in any extra curricular activities simply because their parents cannot pay for this. This year extra funding is available to support getting pupils back into the community in the summer term to support our whole school recovery.
8. The additional £8,159 has been used to purchase a number of resources to support our pupil’s transition into adulthood. We have purchased some ICT equipment including a full camera package to help support our new curriculum, additional ipads, upgraded our technology and purchased a number of tools and equipment that can be accessed to improve pupil’s life chances. We have also purchased communication apps during lockdown to support communication in the home for some of our pupils. The remainder of the funding to support equipment in our new curriculum rooms.

Indicative Pupil Premium funding to be given to Foxfield for the financial year 2021/2022 based on predicted pupil number on roll= £52,165

The Headteacher recommends that Foxfield’s Pupil Premium Strategy for 2021/2022 should be as follows:

1. This year the impact of COVID on our pupil’s mental health has been significant. To continue to support a range of pupils I purpose that we continue to fund the art therapists who has been exceptional in supporting a number of pupils across the school. The art Therapist has also delivered whole school training and has also offered to deliver some training to parents. I feel in the coming year this is something we need to utilise to support whole families. We hope to commission her services to support mental health across the school on a needs basis (£2980 - 18 days)
2. £22,241 to meet the costs of Claire Johnston a Level 3 Teaching Assistant who provides individual support to specific pupils across the school who need additional help. Claire Johnston will continue developing pupils’ reading skills for 3 days per week. She will also do an additional ½ day a week linked to attachment and trauma within school.
3. In line with the new curriculum we are proposing that we provide 18 days (£2,880) next year to our new behaviour, sensory and communication team (Steve L, Gavin A, Michelle I) so that they can implement a range of strategies across the school. This will provide them with opportunities to problem solve and network as a team, ensuring we can support all our pupils needs at their point of learning. As three of our most highly skilled staff they would be able to strategically come up with a whole school focus on a half term basis and deploy associate TA3 to target interventions. The days available would also allow for the staff to observe, coach and support pupils and staff teams. This new collaborative approach would enhance our whole school learning and improve collective communication between coordinators.
4. To work alongside the behaviour, sensory and communication co-ordinator team we are also proposing to implement our highly skilled TA 3 to support across the school. We are proposing to reduce the time spent on behaviour support to 1 days per week for Thom Ijewsky’s. We also plan to deploy and up skill a TA 3 specialised in sensory diets across the school 1 day a week. Additionally we also plan to support our whole school communication through a TA3 who focuses on support Speech and Language within classrooms 1 day a week. Under this new structure our behaviour, sensory and communication team can be deployed to meet the pupils need at their point of learning, it is also flexible and interchangeable to meet the needs of the school on a weekly basis influenced by our weekly Progress, Attendance and Welfare meetings. Within this new approach there will also be opportunities to create a nurture group, using staff from the Therapy team. Costings for this will be £19,064.
5. In line with our new school structure and to implement the Sensory Leader’s proposal from 2020, our aim is that we only purchase the equivalent of 6 days of Shine Therapy’s time next year at a cost of approximately £2500. This would enable the specialist Occupational Therapist to observe and advise on pupils only where extra expert knowledge is needed. We would also aim to have a change of therapist back to the one who we previously had at Foxfield. We would also commission Shine to provide some whole staff training at a suitable time as previous training they have delivered at Foxfield was very successful. The estimated cost of this would be £500.  
6. To use £2000 from the PPF to ensure that extracurricular activities and opportunities remain accessible to all pupils and no pupil will be prevented from participating in any activities simply because their parents cannot pay for this. The school would use this funding to subsidise the broad range of extra curricular activities that are offered to pupils including residential trips and after school clubs. This money reduces or covers the costs where parents/carers need financial assistance to meet all or part of the fee charged to other families. This funding means that no pupil is prevented from participating is such activities because their parents cannot afford this

Martin McKenna

June 2021