How is the grant intended to be spent?
The EEF outline three key areas for the spending of the Catch-Up Premium Grant as best practice to support the learning of students and to begin to address the learning loss of the partial school closures and periods of isolation during the COVID pandemic since March 2020. These three areas are:
- Teaching and whole school strategies
- Targeted support
- Wider strategies
At the beginning of the school year, we undertook a thorough evaluation of the needs of our school community and students given the challenges we have faced. This evaluation involved base-line testing of students, extensive communication with students and parents as to their access to technology and the resources needed to make their learning effective and a forensic consideration of our teaching and learning pedagogy, considering how adaptations needed to be made to curriculum, teaching and assessment approaches both in school and remotely to ensure that our students are best supported in getting back to full education. Following this assessment, the school intends (and has to date already) spend the Catch-Up Premium Grant on measures addressing the three key areas of recommendation from the EEF.
