This statement details our school’s use of pupil premium (and recovery premium for the 2021 to 2022 academic year) 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 effect that last year’s spending of pupil premium had within our school.

School overview

DetailData
School nameSt. Wilfrid’s Alternative Provision Free School
Number of pupils in school110 (125 PAN)
Proportion (%) of pupil premium eligible pupils74%
Academic year/years that our current pupil premium strategy plan covers (3 year plans are recommended)3
Date this statement was publishedDecember 2021
Date on which it will be reviewedSeptember 2022
Statement authorised byD. Pittard
Pupil premium leadD. Pittard
Governor / Trustee leadJ. Pittard

Funding overview

DetailAmount
Pupil premium funding allocation this academic year£5730
Recovery premium funding allocation this academic year£1500
Pupil premium funding carried forward from previous years (enter £0 if not applicable)£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£35,495 (Note: This includes additional funding through the DfE AP Taskforce Pilot and allocated funds from the Academy Budget ring fenced to additionally support PP Students)

Part A: Pupil premium strategy plan

Our aim is to use pupil premium funding to help us achieve and sustain positive outcomes for our disadvantaged pupils. Whilst socio-economic disadvantage is not always the primary challenge our pupils face, we do see a variance in outcomes for disadvantaged pupils across the school when compared to their peers (and those who join us at similar starting points), particularly in terms of: At the heart of our approach is high-quality teaching focussed on areas that disadvantaged pupils require it most, targeted support based on robust diagnostic assessment of need, and helping pupils to access a broad and balanced curriculum including ‘Cultural Capital’ and enrichment opportunities. Although our strategy is focused on the needs of disadvantaged pupils, it will benefit all pupils in our school where funding is spent on whole-school approaches, such as high-quality teaching. Implicit in the intended outcomes detailed below, is the intention that outcomes for non-disadvantaged pupils will be improved alongside progress for their disadvantaged peers. We will also provide disadvantaged pupils with support to develop independent life and social skills and continue to ensure that high-quality work experience, careers guidance and further and higher education guidance is available to all. Our strategy is integral to wider school plans for education recovery, notably through engagement with the National Tutoring Programme to provide one-to-one support for pupils that have been worst affected, including non-disadvantaged pupils.   

Challenges

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

Challenge numberDetail of challenge
1Our assessments show that disadvantaged pupils generally make less progress from their starting points when entering school. Whilst the types of barriers to learning and the difficulties disadvantaged pupils experience vary, their overall academic progress tends to be lower in most subjects compared to non-disadvantaged pupils. This trend is most recognisable in the areas of reading, writing and numeracy.
2Our assessments, observations and discussions with pupils show that disadvantaged pupils generally have greater challenges around communicating and expressing their needs than their peers, including non-verbal, limited language and social interaction difficulties.
3Through observations and conversations with pupils and their families, we find that disadvantaged pupils generally have fewer opportunities to develop cultural capital outside of school.
4Our assessments, observations and conversations with pupils indicate that disadvantaged pupils often require additional support to develop personal and social skills.
5Our assessments, observations and discussions with pupils and families demonstrate that the education, wellbeing and wider aspects of development of many of our disadvantaged pupils have been impacted by the pandemic to a greater extent than for other pupils.

Intended outcomes

This explains the outcomes we are aiming for by the end of our current strategy plan, and how we will measure whether they have been achieved.

Intended outcomeSuccess criteria
Improved attainment for disadvantaged pupils in all subjects, notably Maths and English, relative to their starting points as identified through baseline assessments.  Through achievement of improved performance, as demonstrated by our end of year assessments and year 11 Functional Skills and GCSE examinations. An increase in the number of disadvantaged pupils entered for GCSE subjects. For those that are entered, results show a reduction in the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers.
Pupils can use a range of communication systems to aid their understanding and to develop expressive communication skills. All students have access to High Quality Speech and Language Assessment of need and a bespoke intervention plan put in place to allow targeted intervention and support as required.Through achievement of EHC plan termly outcomes. NGRT assessment demonstrates improved SAS scores and average reading ages for all students  
Disadvantaged pupils have greater confidence and independence to help them engage more with the wider community and prepare for adulthood.Through observations and discussions with pupils and their families.  
Disadvantaged pupils have greater confidence and independence to help them engage more with the wider community and prepare for adulthood.Through observations and discussions with pupils and their families. Improved scores from entry to exit in student wellbeing measure, the Strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ).
Disadvantaged pupils feel better prepared for career progression and / or HE opportunities through mentoring, work experience and opportunity.  All disadvantaged pupils are able to access high quality work experience and careers mentoring.

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: £15,880

ActivityEvidence that supports this approachChallenge number(s) addressed
CPD for teaching staff on delivering Phonics Intervention to support development of students language needs.   1, 2
Secondment of a Speech and Language Therapist (SALT) who in addition to working with students will train staff in assessing students needs.The Communication Trust worked with the Better Communication Research Programme to develop the What Works database of evidenced interventions to support children’s speech, language and communication. What works database (ican.org.uk) This has been endorsed by the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.2, 4

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

Budgeted cost: £2,115

ActivityEvidence that supports this approachChallenge number(s) addressed
Engaging with the National Tutoring Pro-gramme to provide a blend of tuition, mentoring and school-led tutoring for pupils whose education has been most impacted by the pandemic. A significant proportion of the pupils who receive tutoring will be disadvantaged.Tuition targeted at specific needs and knowledge gaps can be an effective method to support low attaining pupils or those falling behind, both one-to-one: One to one tuition | EEF (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk) And in small groups: Small group tuition | Toolkit Strand | Education Endowment Foundation | EEF5

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

Budgeted cost: £17,500

ActivityEvidence that supports this approachChallenge number(s) addressed
Programme working with parents and carers to develop effective home learning environments and increased self-expression. The NSPCC recommends parents and carers work with their children to create routines that provide structure to their day, partake in activities together, and assist children in expressing their emotions: Supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities | NSPCC3

Total budgeted cost: £35,495

Part B: Review of outcomes in the previous academic year

Pupil premium strategy outcomes

This details the impact that our pupil premium activity had on pupils in the 2020 to 2021 academic year.

Our internal academic assessments during 2020/21 indicated that disadvantaged pupils academic and wider development outcomes were in general as anticipated from their baselines on entry. There is evidence however, that the social and emotional development were in general below what was anticipated.

Our assessment of the reasons for these outcomes points primarily to Covid-19 impact. This disrupted the teaching of all subject areas and contact time in school with students  had a negative impact on most pupils’ development to varying degrees, particularly in limiting opportunities to progress social and communication skills and independence.

We mitigated the impact on academic outcomes by our resolution to maintain a high quality curriculum, even when pupils were not in school, via resources delivered using Microsoft Teams. Students without ICT access were supported with a tablet device and Wi-Fi dongle.

Our assessments and observations suggested that for many pupils, being out of school, uncertainty and concern over their future and challenges around access to support were detrimental to behaviour, wellbeing and mental health to varying degrees. We used pupil premium funding to help provide wellbeing support and targeted interventions where required by our ‘Fortis’ Therapist. We successfully delivered online as well as face to face, group and on-to-one sessions.

The impact of all of these challenges was greatest on our disadvantaged pupils, as has been evidenced across the country.

Further information (optional)

Additional activity Our pupil premium strategy will be supplemented by additional activity that we are not funding using pupil premium or recovery premium.

That will include:  

• Working as part of the DfE Alternative Provision Specialist Taskforce Pilot which will provide intensive multi-agency support to vulnerable children and young people in Alternative Provision (AP) most at risk of disengaging with ed-ucation, being criminally exploited by gangs and becoming involved in county lines and knife crime. This programme responds to the known issue: that vul-nerable young people in AP are at high risk of disengaging from education and becoming involved in serious violence and county lines. It will test the impact of co-locating in AP schools, specialist workers from across health, education, so-cial care, youth services and youth justice. Co-locating this workforce full-time in AP should remove the need for referrals to outside services and provide op-portunities for practitioners to build trusted relationships with AP pupils.

• Arranging work-based learning that enables pupils to have first-hand experi-ence of work, such as apprenticeships, work based training and offsite training providers.

Planning, implementation and evaluation

In planning our new pupil premium strategy, we evaluated why activity undertaken in previous years had not had the degree of impact that we had expected. We looked at a number of studies about the impact of the pandemic on disadvantaged learners.

The pandemic has also given us deeper insights into family life for those from disadvantaged backgrounds and we have been able to forge stronger relationships with parents/guardians as a result. In addition to the pupil premium funded activity outlined above, we have put in place stronger expectations around areas of effective practice.

We have developed a comprehensive CPD programme supporting teachers to develop their professional practice and train in specialist areas, allowing them to develop expertise and share them with other staff.

We have used the EEF’s implementation guidance to set out our plans and put in place a robust evaluation framework for the duration of our three-year approach. This will help us to make adjustments and quality improvement to secure better outcomes for pupils over time.