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Pupil Premium

What is Pupil Premium?


Pupil Premium is extra money that comes into our budget to help us make a positive difference to the educational outcomes of disadvantaged pupils. All schools are entitled to Pupil Premium. It is calculated by the number of pupils we have who are or were eligible for free school meals in the last 6 years or who are identified as looked after by a Local Authority (children in care or foster care).


At Eastgate Academy, we have a high percentage of pupils entitled to free school meals compared to the national average.

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.

How Can We Spend Pupil Premium?


Although our Pupil Premium grant is calculated in terms of specific pupils, we do not have to spend the money directly on them. We can use the money as we see fit. However, we have to demonstrate how we are using Pupil Premium to close the progress gap between less and more advantaged pupils.     

 

This statement details our school’s use of pupil premium (and recovery premium) 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 outcomes for disadvantaged pupils last academic year.

School overview - 2022-2023

Detail

Data

Number of pupils in school

272

Proportion (%) of pupil premium eligible pupils

39 %

Academic year/years that our current pupil premium strategy plan covers (3 year plans are recommended)

2022 - 2025

Date this statement was published

2/11/2022

Date on which it will be reviewed

2 /9/2023

Statement authorised by

Linda Hothersall

Pupil premium lead

Linda Hothersall

Governor / Trustee lead

 

Funding overview

Detail

Amount

Pupil premium funding allocation this academic year

£ 134,345

Recovery premium funding allocation this academic year

£ 23,400

Pupil premium (and recovery premium*) funding carried forward from previous years (enter £0 if not applicable)

*Recovery premium received in academic year 2021 to 2022 can be carried forward to academic year 2022 to 2023. Recovery premium received in academic year 2022 to 2023 cannot be carried forward to 2023 to 2024.

£0

Total budget for this academic year

If your school is an academy in a trust that pools this funding, state the amount available to your school this academic year

£157,745

Part A: Pupil premium strategy plan

Statement of Intent

At Eastgate Academy our aim is to use the pupil premium funding to counter disadvantage and to ensure greater equity through:

  1. Ensuring and supporting great teaching
  2. Providing targeted Top up Teaching
  3. Using a wider range of strategies to overcome barriers to learning

 

Ensuring and supporting great teaching

We recognise the importance of ensuring all pupils, whatever their background or circumstance, are provided with an education of the highest quality. This will ensure that all our pupils are equipped with the knowledge and skills they will need to succeed in, and beyond school. Strategies to close achievement gaps between groups and individuals are an integral part of every lesson and evident across the curriculum. Within the classroom there is a clear focus on well planned and differentiated lessons that challenge and stretch all pupils. A programme of training supports staff to continually expand and experiment with a full range of teaching strategies and techniques to ensure the achievement gap is closed rapidly through the use of timely and appropriate pre and post lesson teaching.

This will include:

  • extensive gap analysis used to further inform teaching
  • 1:1 and small group support within the class
  • Assistant teacher and additional teacher support in class
  • The employment of specialist teachers
  • CPD for staff and collaborative practice, including team teaching, modelled lessons and best practice visits

Providing targeted academic interventions

For some children, high quality teaching in itself may not be enough and there is a need for additional, time-limited provision outside of normal classroom activities. There is extensive evidence supporting the impact of high quality one to one and small group tuition as a catch-up strategy. Programmes are likely to have the greatest impact where they meet a specific need, include regular sessions maintained over a sustained period and are carefully timetabled to enable consistent delivery. Effective interventions follow assessment, which can then be used to ensure that support is well-targeted and to monitor pupil progress.

This will include:

  • 1:1 / small groups in English and maths
  • additional learning time
  • additional phonics
  • speech and language support
  • SEND / EAL support groups
  • Social and emotional support
  • Meditation

Specific support needed for 2022/2023

  • Reception reading, writing and maths
  • Year 1 writing and greater depth reading
  • Year 2 reading, writing and maths
  • Year 3 writing and maths, and all greater depth
  • Year 4 reading working towards, writing and maths
  • Year 5 reading, writing and all greater depth
  • Year 6 reading, writing, maths and all greater depth

 

Using a wider range of strategies to overcome barriers to learning

In addition to the strategies above, a range of other strategies can contribute to children’s success in school, such as improving attendance and punctuality, supporting positive behaviour, social and emotional skills and building parental engagement. Parents/carers play a key role in supporting children to learn at home and it is important for us to work together to support this.

This will include:

  • a focus on improving attendance and punctuality
  • providing curriculum enrichment opportunities
  • support for wellbeing and mental health
  • interventions to increase parental engagement and to ensure there is equity for pupils
  • interventions focused on emotional regulation and social interaction
  • whole school approach to trauma informed behaviours

Challenges

This details the key challenges to achievement that we have identified amongst our disadvantaged pupils.

Challenge number

Detail of challenge

1

Lack of parental engagement, understanding of support systems and aspirations

2

Mental health issues for the parents/carers and the child

3

Lack of cultural capital and experiences

4

Communication and social skills - Speech and language difficulties

5

Exposure to gangs, crime, drug and alcohol abuse

6

Housing issues, lack of space and overcrowding

7

Financial issues

8

Low attainment on entry

9

Educational recovery due to Covid 19

Intended outcomes

Intended outcome

Monitoring 

Link to aim:

  1. Great teaching
  2. Targeted interventions
  3. Wider strategies

Teaching is consistently good or better for pupil premium children

Monitoring through observations

Evaluation of regular CPD

Intervention observations and book looks

Feedback from trips using pupil voice

Monitoring in pupil progress meetings

Systematic catch-up monitoring in interventions

Pupil voice monitoring for social and emotional interventions

1

Pupil premium pupils are supported through Top up Teaching in all subjects for expected progress and GD.

2

Pupil premium children benefit from a range of activities and experiences to broaden their experiences and curriculum

3

Pupil premium children are supported emotionally and socially in order to fully access the curriculum

2

Evidence

EFF Report on impact of covid on attainment

https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/guidance-for-teachers/covid-19-resources/best-evidence-on-impact-of-covid-19-on-pupil-attainment

NFER report on the impact of covid on pupil attainment

https://www.nfer.ac.uk/media/4876/the_impact_of_covid_19_on_pupil_attainment.pdf

Impact of Covid on the disadvantaged gap

https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/5866/pdf/

 

 

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: £ 21,993

End of year data intended outcomes

EYFS Good Level of Development to be 80% for pupil premium children

Regular assessment weeks, data points and data tracking

Monitoring through learning walks, learning reviews, book looks, pupil voice and pupil progress meetings

Attendance and punctuality monitoring weekly with the headteacher and half termly with parents/ carers

To be above the expected standards at Year 1 phonics, KS1 cumulative phonics, KS1 and KS2 reading, writing and Maths for pupil premium children and the multiplication test in year 4

Attendance to be 96% or above for pupil premium children

 

Ensuring and supporting great teaching

 

Activity

Evidence that supports this

Challenge number(s) addressed

Purchase of standardised diagnostic assessments through Pixel.

Training for staff to ensure assessments are interpreted and administered correctly.

Standardised tests can provide reliable insights into the specific strengths and weaknesses of each pupil to help ensure they receive the correct additional support through interventions or teacher instruction:

Standardised tests | Assessing and Monitoring Pupil Progress | Education Endowment Foundation | EEF

1,2,4,8,9

To continue to support Oral language throughout the school.

There is a strong evidence base that suggests oral language interventions, including dialogic activities such as high-quality classroom discussion, are inexpensive to implement with high impacts on reading:

Oral language interventions | Toolkit Strand | Education Endowment Foundation | EEF

1,2,3,4,8,9

Purchase of a DfE validated Systematic Synthetic Phonics programme to secure stronger phonics teaching for all pupils

 

Phonics approaches have a strong evidence base that indicates a positive impact on the accuracy of word reading (though not necessarily comprehension), particularly for disadvantaged pupils:

Phonics | Toolkit Strand | Education Endowment Foundation | EEF

1.2.3.4.8.9

Enhancement of our maths teaching and curriculum planning in line with DfE and EEF guidance.

We will fund teacher release time to embed key elements of guidance in school and to access Maths Hub resources and CPD (including Teaching for Mastery training).

The DfE non-statutory guidance has been produced in conjunction with the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics, drawing on evidence-based approaches:

Maths_guidance_KS_1_and_2.pdf (publishing.service.gov.uk)

The EEF guidance is based on a range of the best available evidence:

Improving Mathematics in Key Stages 2 and 3

1.2.3.4.8.9

To achieve and sustain improved attendance for all pupils, particularly our disadvantaged pupils

Sustained high attendance by 2024/25 demonstrated by:

  • the overall unauthorised absence rate for all pupils tp be 96%
  • the percentage of all pupils who are persistently absent being below 5 %.

All

 

 

Targeted academic support (for example, tutoring, one-to-one support, structured interventions)

Budgeted cost: £ 117,163

 

Activity

Evidence that supports this approach

Challenge number(s) addressed

Additional phonics sessions targeted at disadvantaged pupils who require further phonics support.

Phonics approaches have a strong evidence base indicating a positive impact on pupils, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds. Targeted phonics interventions have been shown to be more effective when delivered as regular sessions over a period up to 12 weeks:

Phonics | Toolkit Strand | Education Endowment Foundation | EEF

1,2, 4,8,9

Speech and language support

Continue to fund Speech and Language support throughout the school.  65% of identified pupils come from a disadvantaged back ground.

 1,2,3,8,9

Improve the quality of social and emotional (SEL) learning.

SEL approaches will be embedded into routine educational practices and supported by professional development and training for staff.

There is extensive evidence associating childhood social and emotional skills with improved outcomes at school and in later life (e.g., improved academic performance, attitudes, behaviour and relationships with peers):

EEF_Social_and_Emotional_Learning.pdf(educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk)

1,2,4,5.6.7.9

 Continue with meditation sessions for Years 4, 5 and 6

Children enjoy meditation it helps them stay calm and gives them time to think.  Children reported that they use the body scan at night times to go to sleep in noisy environments.

1,2,3,4,6,

Pupil progress interviews

1 – 1 interviews with each child to discuss their work and future ambitions

 

1,2,3,4,5,8,9

 

 

Wider strategies (for example, related to attendance, behaviour, wellbeing)

Budgeted cost: £18,589

 

Activity

Evidence that supports this approach

Challenge number(s) addressed

Embedding principles of good practice set out in the DfE’s Improving School Attendance advice.

This will involve training and release time for staff to develop and implement new procedures and appointing attendance/support officers to improve attendance.

 

Attendance officer interviews and support plans with families have improved the attendance of all families. Keeping op to date with the latest

 

1.2.5

Providing curriculum enrichment opportunities and targeted financial support

School residential and trips, cultural capital opportunities – fencing, archery, dungeons and dragon club, character descriptions,  knowledge based curriculum, washing and buying school uniform and shoes.  School food bank and clothes store.

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9

Interventions to increase parental engagement and welcome them back to the school after Covid 19

Inviting parents into school for assemblies, café’s, working groups, lunches, cookery lessons, fund raising

All

 

Total budgeted cost: £ 157,745

Part B: Review of the previous academic year

Outcomes for disadvantaged pupils

2020/21 internal testing has shown gaps in some areas of the core curriculum, especially in years R to 3.  Disadvantaged children on average have made the same progress or better progress than Non Disadvantaged children. 

Areas of concern from last year are;

  • Writing, especially spelling and grammar – New phonics programme Sounds Write in place from September 2022 to aid with spelling and grammar. All teachers and assistant teachers in the infants to be trained 2022 -2023
  • Continue to use Read Write Inc from Year 3 for this year. Training in 23-24 for Year 3 staff.
  • Looking into other ways of raising the attainment of writing.
  • Greater Depth in all areas.
  • Year 4 to 6 disadvantaged children are within one point of non disadvantaged in Reading and Maths.  Writing is the main concern as disadvantaged children are struggling with spelling and complex sentence structure.

 

Externally provided programmes

Please include the names of any non-DfE programmes that you used your pupil premium (or recovery premium) to fund in the previous academic year.

Programme

Provider

Pixel

Pixel

 

 

 

 

Service pupil premium funding (optional)

For schools that receive this funding, you may wish to provide the following information: How our service pupil premium allocation was spent last academic year

NA

The impact of that spending on service pupil premium eligible pupils

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                  

Pupil Premium Grant Expenditure:  

Report to Parents: Eastgate Academy 2021/22 

Overview of the school 

Number of pupils and pupil premium grant (PPG) received 

Total number of pupils on roll 

274 

Total number of pupils eligible for PPG 

94 

Amount of PPG received per pupil 

  

£1,345 

Total amount of PPG received 

£126,430 

  

  

  

Current attainment and progress (Year 6 2021/ 22) 

  

Pupils Eligible for PP at 

(Eastgate 

Academy) 

Pupils Eligible for PP 

(National) 

All Pupils 

(Eastgate 

Academy) 

  

All Pupils 

(National) 

% Working ‘At Age Related Expectations or Above’ in 

Reading, Writing and Maths 

72% 

  

72% 

  

% Working ‘At Age Related Expectations or Above’ in 

Reading 

75% 

  

76% 

  

% Working ‘At Age Related Expectations or Above’ in Writing 

73% 

  

74% 

  

% Working ‘At Age Related Expectations or Above’ in Maths 

82% 

  

81% 

  

  

Barriers to future attainment (for pupils eligible for PP) 

In-school barriers 

Poor communication and oral language skills 

Social, emotional and mental health difficulties that children are experiencing 

Enthusing more able children to ensure that they have a desire to achieve to the best of their ability 

External barriers 

 Attendance is an issue with some children who are pupil premium. 

Poor home learning environments, lack of books, paper and IT equipment in family homes. 

Children with Social Emotion and Mental Health problems and/or parents or carers 

  

  

Desired outcomes 

Success criteria 

Children will have communication and oral language skills in line with their peers 

There will be a reduced gap in communication and oral language skills between those children eligible for PP funding and their peers 

Raise Attendance, Attendance Weekly Rewards 

The highest attendance of the week are reward by a non-uniform day and choice of reward 

More able children will be achieving to their full potential across the curriculum 

More able children who are eligible for PP funding will make at least expected progress 

Children who are experiencing social, emotional and mental health difficulties will be identified and appropriate support will be put in place to ensure that their needs are met 

More children who are eligible for PP funding will have improved wellbeing and mental health  

  

Nature of support  2021- 2022 

Aims: 

•        Continue to support our Speech and Language Teaching Assistant who works with disadvantaged cohort throughout the school to develop communication and oral language skills. 

•        Contribute to supporting the creation of a knowledge based curriculum which will engage, enthuse and motivate disadvantaged children.  

•        Funding for trips to widen the experience of disadvantaged children. 

•        Senior Leadership Team strategic release time to interrogate data, monitor progress, moderate and share best practice with other academies/schools in order to ensure the very best outcomes for disadvantaged children. 

•        Increased focus on the more able disadvantaged children to ensure that they have a desire to achieve to the best of their ability. 

•        Continued to providing a breakfast  for all children and families 

  

  

  

Record of PPG spending by item/project 2021/22 

Item/project 

Cost 

Objective 

Outcome 

Continue to support our Speech and Language Teaching Assistant who works with disadvantaged cohort throughout the school to develop communication and oral language skills 

£12,500 

  

  

  

  

To bridge the gap in communication and oral language skills for children who are eligible for PP funding using 1:1 and small groups sessions. 

  

  

  

Children will make rapid progress.  Most children’s communication and language skills will improve to help them make progress across the curriculum.   

Improve the mental health and well-being of all pupils 

£24,352 

Years 4, 5 and 6 have 1 x 40 minutes per week to enable them to have a calm focused mind set. 

1 Part time Thrive practitioners enables more children receive the Thrive practise 

Give students strategies and techniques to enable them to be able to stop and think before they act.  To use breathing techniques to help them sleep at nights. 

Raise attainment in Lower attending classrooms 

  

  

Top up Teaching 

  

£56,000 

  

  

  

£13,345 

 Addition TA’s employed to work in EYFS, Year 3/4 and 5/6 classes, to help classes meet their targets. 

  

Continue to fund and train full time TA’s in the classroom to enable release time. 

This will continue, children have become more independent/positive about their learning. 

  

  

  

  

  

Senior Leadership Team strategic release time to interrogate data, monitor progress, moderate and share best practice with other academies/schools with a focus on accelerated progress of disadvantaged cohort. 

£4,432 

Senior leaders to have regular non-contact time to enable them to carry out leadership roles and responsibilities including monitoring of teachers within their phase, moderation and peer reviews with staff from other Primary academies within the Trust.   

  

Monitoring by the Senior Leadership Team will include ensuring that there is no gap between the progress and attainment of those children eligible for PP funding and their peers. 

  

Senior leaders will be able to develop a robust system of monitoring which enables them to support the strategic development of members of their phase teams.  Senior leaders will be able to work with colleagues across the Trust, within the Cluster and with schools in the Norwich area in order to moderate work and share good practice.   

There will be no gap in progress and attainment. 

  

Funding for trips and general activities to widen the experiences of disadvantaged children.   

  

£5501 

  

  

  

To provide a range of opportunities such as trips and real life experiences in order to enhance children’s learning.  To include residential trip for disadvantaged children. 

 Providing funding for transport to access trips and activities   

  

Children will have a range of experiences to draw upon and link with their learning. All children will have opportunities to engage with all activities, and the cost of this will not be a barrier for children and their families. Involvement of all in extra curricula activities.  

Continued support of Breakfast for all children at Eastgate Academy 

£10,000 

Fund 3 members of staff to run Breakfast Trolley 

  

Provide breakfast food and drink.  

To provide high quality breakfast food and drink to enable children to come into school and be prepared for the school day.   

  

The number of vulnerable families accessing our Breakfast Trolley will increase.  This will help to support getting children into school in a timely manner and hence enabling them to be ready for the school day ahead.  All children will have had the opportunity to have breakfast before formal learning starts each day.  Behavioural difficulties will decrease and there has been a linked improvement in Attendance 

  

  

Uniform 

  

  

£300 

  

  

TA’s wash uniform during PE lesson, continue to replace uniform for children when theirs is worn out. 

All children have clean uniform, PE kit and shoes, trainers and plimsolls. 

 

 

 

Funding for trips and general activities to widen the experiences of disadvantaged children.  

 

£10408

 

 

 

To provide a range of opportunities such as trips and real life experiences in order to enhance children’s learning.  To include residential trip for disadvantaged children.

 Providing funding for transport to access trips and activities  

 

Children will have a range of experiences to draw upon and link with their learning. All children will have opportunities to engage with all activities, and the cost of this will not be a barrier for children and their families. Involvement of all in extra curricula activities. 

Continued support of Breakfast for all children at Eastgate Academy

£12,500

Fund 3 members of staff to run Breakfast Trolley

 

Provide breakfast food and drink. 

To provide high quality breakfast food and drink to enable children to come into school and be prepared for the school day.  

 

The number of vulnerable families accessing our Breakfast Trolley will increase.  This will help to support getting children into school in a timely manner and hence enabling them to be ready for the school day ahead.  All children will have had the opportunity to have breakfast before formal learning starts each day.  Behavioural difficulties will decrease and there has been a linked improvement in Attendance

 

Uniform

 

 

 

Attendance Awards

 

 

£400

 

 

 

£2995

 

 

The highest attendance of the week are rewarded by a non-uniform and choice of rewards

All children have clean uniform, PE kit and shoes, trainers and plimsolls.

 

 

School Council meet to decide the reward scheme for each year.