Catch up
As part of the government catch up program, additional funding has been allocated to the school to address the learning gaps caused by the two national lockdowns. The school has used this funding in a variety of ways to support the children:
Resources
The school has purchased a new reading system using some of the allocated funding. We have identified that during the lockdowns the remote learning provision for reading was difficult to facilitate via zoom. Also, we noticed that the resources that many families had at home, especially with libraries being closed, meant that the children were not exposed to a variety of different texts or high-quality texts.
As a school, we have decided to purchase the Reading Planet system to enhance our in-class guided reading. This scheme of books provides the children with a range of texts, genres and themes. Furthermore, we have invested in our home reading systems as well as our phonics systems to ensure that the children are able to make accelerated progress throughout this year and the subsequent years to come.
Century Tech
The school has also purchased a three-year subscription for Century Tech. Century Tech is an online intervention program that provides a series of diagnostic tests to identify individual gaps in learning. From the diagnostic tests, using artificial intelligence, each child is provided with an individual learning path full of activities to improve their attainment. Each lesson, or nugget as they are known, comes with a short learning video for the children to watch before completing the task.
The teacher is able to monitor the progress of all children and using the administration section is able to identify children who are struggling so that additional intervention can be put in place. Century Tech is being accessed within school time by all pupils on a timetable rota as well as at home in their own time.
Small-Group Tuition
The school is also running small group tuition sessions with children in years 3-6. Children have been specifically chosen linked to assessment data to attend the before and after school sessions to develop their comprehension and maths skills. These sessions are facilitated by staff in the school and currently, there are 8 groups running a week and over 100 children attending regularly.
Saturday Catch Up Club
On a Saturday morning, a member of staff from the school facilitates a revision club for year 5 and 6 pupils. This club is delivered remotely via Zoom. During this time, the teacher will recap the weeks learning objectives as well as pre-teach the learning for the week ahead. The club is very well attended with over 70 children from years 5 and 6 accessing the zoom learning.
