Pupil Premium at St Monica Primary School

What is Pupil Premium?

The Pupil Premium Grant is an allocation of additional funding provided to schools to support specific groups of children who are vulnerable to possible underachievement.

These include children who are (or have been at any point in the previous 6 years) entitled to free school meals, those looked after by the local authority and those children either adopted or placed under a special guardianship order.

All schools are required to report on the amount of funding received and how this is being used. The priority areas for spending are detailed in the below PDF link but these are by no means exhaustive, with funding also applied in supporting specific individuals requiring a bespoke plan. The details are accounted for within the Pupil Premium Financial Accounting System.

Schools are also required to report annually on the impact of their strategy.

For more information about Pupil Premium at St Monica, visit our Statutory Information Page

Our Principles:

In order to address educational disadvantage, St Monica Primary School engage in the following:

We are a fully inclusive school. We have high expectations and high ambitions for every pupil, regardless of background
We adopt a community approach. All staff understand our strategy and their role within this
A culture and belief that all children can attain well
The importance of structures and systems - day in, day out, term in, term out
What can we influence? Raising educational disadvantage starts with belief. At St Monica Primary School, we have a belief that all children can do better and we can raise their attainment from individual starting points
Our strategy is informed by evidence. Where is the expertise beyond our school? We utilise the very best research to adopt and adapt our classroom practices. We adopt an outward facing approach, working and collaborating with the very best e.g. Maths Mastery, English Hub, Marc Rowland
Educational disadvantage is a long term issue, therefore it warrants a long term approach. We will not have a list of lots of strategies and interventions; we will embed those that show impact over time
Early intervention - the earlier we intervene, the more the learner will enjoy, think and improve
Directly target those in need. Pupils who are deemed as needing support or struggling, get as much support and time with the teacher
Addressing educational disadvantage is not about 'catch up learning' with practitioners outside of the classroom, it is about high quality, tailored support in the classroom. We focus just as much on disadvantaged pupils who are performing well to do even better
Interventions will be well monitored, with adults having the training and resources needed. They will be brief, regular and maintained. Interventions will be closely timetabled with adequate spacing being considered. Learning from interventions will inform planning. Progress will be valued and celebrated.
We recognise that an intervention is not enough on its own. For example, for the success of the Nuffield Early Language Intervention to be sustained, children need to be immersed in a 'tsunami of language and talk'
Each academic year, in Autumn, we will not rewrite our strategy, we will refine it. We will robustly evaluate our strategy based on the evidence and impact on outcomes - we will evaluate not prove.
An ongoing relentless commitment to addressing educational disadvantage
Progress and attainment is not solely about data. At St Monica Primary School we aim for every learner to leave our school with the dignity of being literate and numerate as a minimum
We strongly believe in parental empowerment. We see parents as partners and aim to work with our parent community for the educational benefit of our children
The role of our Academy Council in challenging our strategy and impact

Culture, Values, Expectations & Relationships:

Culture and Values are fundamental to addressing educational disadvantage.

At St Monica Primary School, we:

Understand the importance of relationships and a sense of belonging in the classroom
Believe high expectations and quality first teaching lead to progress of all learners, but particularly those in receipt of pupil premium and those just below this threshold
Place an emphasis on learning and teaching
Ensure access to highly trained staff by providing CPD and professional development for staff. We begun our engagement in MPTA (Maximising the Practice of Teaching Assistants) and MITA (Maximising the Impact of Teaching Assistants) training which looks at Teacher/TA partnerships, classroom organisation, school culture, metacognition
Ensure curriculum equity for all - all children to have access to our wider curriculum
Believe if we can get it right for those in receipt of disadvantage, we get it right for all
Scaffold up, not differentiate down
Are mindful of the language we use e.g. we do not use language of 'ability' as this can affect expectations and can lead to low confidence and self esteem
Ensure high levels of staff wellbeing, recruitment and retention
Have a high quality pastoral provision, recognising the crucial role this plays
Acknowledge the addressing of educational disadvantage as a whole school approach- we recognise the roles of parents, behaviour, attendance, wellbeing and mental health

Assessment of Need:

Our Disadvantaged Strategy is pupil led, not label led.

Staff at St Monica Primary School:

Know the children in receipt of pupil premium funding within their classes
Know the needs of children within their classes, knowing that all children are different and have different needs
Track pupils and ensure they make good progress
Have a knowledge of our community and understand the important role parents play
Use assessment to capture baselines and progress, not assumptions
Intervene earlier when gaps are narrower
Respond to need
Analyse to discover trends
Have high quality relationships with children which aid the giving and receiving of feedback
Encourage vocabulary growth and development in all subjects
Ensure the learning environment and the talk within it is language rich
Ensure children are in receipt of multiple, meaningful interactions, not solely exposure to language
Encourage metacognition and self regulated learning
Celebrate the engagement, contributions, hard work and thinking of children, as well as the answer
Ensure all academic interventions are based on assessment and evidence
Evaluate our strategies for impact

MPTA and MITA Training

We have begun our engagement in MPTA (Maximising the Practice of Teaching Assistants - what teachers need to know) and MITA (Maximising the Impact of Teaching Assistants) training.

We look forward to sharing the impact with you soon.

IRIS Connect

At the Inspire Learning Partnership, we encourage our staff to continually look for ways to raise teaching standards and consequently improve outcomes for our children. To support this, Blackfield Primary and Fawley Infant School, invested in IRIS Connect; a system trusted by thousands of educators and educational institutions throughout the world, to empower teachers to have more ownership of their professional development, grow in confidence and collaborate successfully with peers. St Monica Primary School are currently looking at this system.

Using IRIS Connect’s online platform and mobile video cameras, teachers have the opportunity to record, reflect on and develop their practice using tools designed to enable the most effective professional learning activities, as demonstrated by the latest research. It’s been reported that, as a result of videoing lessons, 94% of teachers said their teaching had improved and 88% said their confidence had risen.

Although video is a powerful tool for accelerating teaching and learning, we know it's vital that the children featured in a lesson recording are appropriately protected at all times. This is why IRIS Connect have built a system that’s rooted in data protection, privacy and safety and ensures outstanding security. Reassuringly, it is the only video professional learning platform with a protocol agreed between the ASCL and NASUWT teaching unions.

All video footage is kept on secure and trusted servers that never enter the public domain. The use of IRIS Connect is strictly for professional development and satisfies our strict policies on keeping young people safe. To find out more about IRIS Connect please visit their website https://www.irisconnect.com/uk/support/faqs/