As a leadership team, we fully recognise that the period of lockdown had an impact on the progress and well-being of a number of students within our Academy community.With this in mind, we will use the catch-up funding to:
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· Identify those students who need specific support to catch-up, whilst continuing to adapt teaching and learning (both in school and via remote learning as appropriate) to ensure that all students make appropriate progress irrespective of their ‘return to school starting point’
· Adapt existing schemes of work to take account of the need for specific catch-up activities, supporting this through regular assessment (both ‘low stakes’ and formal) and retrieval, ensuring that knowledge and concepts are frequently revisited through the academic year
· Support all students through securing excellent teaching, developmental and supportive assessment, bespoke intervention, and a wrap-around pastoral system which meets them at their point of need

Funding: The Academy will receive (a projected) £99,120 (Autumn Payment £24,780). Although we receive no funding for Key Stage 5 Catch-Up, we have allocated a separate budget for this.

For a number of years, we had invested in:

· technology & CPD to ensure staff could teach online;
· numerous support packages e.g. GCSE POD, Hegarty Maths, Tassomai;
· numeracy and literacy strategies such as AR, Guided Reading and Corrective Reading.

We also had a strong support system in place to help guide our students through their examination year. This included a ‘15 Weeks to Thrive’ revision guide, targeted intervention during tutorial sessions, access to a quiet place to study (Year 11) and timetabled personal study sessions for years 12&13.

Due to the changes necessitated by COVID-19, we have:
· invested in numerous, additional online revision services and packages to support our students;
· purchased a PSHEE programme which will be taught via our LIVE! sessions to supplement the work undertaken on PSHEE days;
· participated in training provided by the diocese on Mental Health & Well-being and Bereavement
· equipped Maths staff with iPads and Apple pens so that they can teach in a room without an interactive whiteboard and bought into iDoceo to enable staff to track student engagement and progress;

The Catch-up Premium will be spent on the following:
1. Revision materials
2. Subscription to online learning materials
3. Pastoral mentor & access to counsellor
4. Academic mentors Resources to aid teaching in a COVID secure classroom and online
5. Catch-up sessions – NEAs/ subject specific
6. Catch-up Literacy and Numeracy with Years 7 & 8
7. Additional intervention (focus on Y11 & Y13)
8. KS5 Support (separate budget)

1. Revision material
‍We will provide students in years 11 & 13 with material to support their revision. This may be basic stationary, through to material to aid retrieval such as CGP Flashcards or online quizzes (testing students’ knowledge & producing a QLA to direct them to what specifically they need to revise).
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2. Subscription to online learning materials
‍Our subscription to online materials will help our staff skilfully teach elements of our curriculum, for example Mathspad will enable staff to model visual concepts such as transformations, graphs, nets and constructions. Whereas PE will invest in an Everlearner licence for the CAMNAT course to address any gaps in students’ knowledge and provide resources to learn remotely.

3. Pastoral mentor & access to counsellor
‍We have released the Reflect Manager from her current role so that she may provide additional support for our vulnerable students. Her main responsibilities will be as follows:
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- to provide pastoral guidance for students regarding emotional, mental health, wellbeing and engagement, as appropriate§    help individual/small groups of students to engage with all aspects of Academy life
- to work alongside students who are showing symptoms of anxiety as a result of the lockdown and the current pandemic§    to work with students who have a poor attendance record, identifying barriers they have and creating strategies to address these  
-mentor students who have been identified by our Learning Area Co-ordinators as needing additional support
-contact each student who is absent due to isolation, so that we know that they are safe and engaging with their online learning and they understand that we are supporting them.

We have also sourced additional hours from the School Counsellor to address the increased need we are experiencing of students who require specialist support.

4. Mentors
‍We have redeployed some staff to act as academic mentors to students who are struggling. For example a very experienced LSA who is particularly gifted at inspiring disaffected boys now regularly meets with students to set targets and liaises with staff on their behalf. We have also added to our LSA staffing so that those students who would benefit from class support, and who do not attract direct funding, are able to access their learning more readily. Within these roles our staff:

- develop Academic Plans (APs) with individual students designed to identify specific areas of concern and strategies; APs will be shared with parents/carers and teaching staff;
- support individual/small groups of students within lessons (current regulations allowing): teaching staff will supply work/resources and direction if a student is taken out of lessons to receive small group intervention;
- Advise and mentor individuals/small groups providing them with specific study skills

‍5. Resources to aid teaching in a COVID secure classroom and to improve online learning
‍We will purchase additional resources so that staff can teach regardless of social distancing. For example, we will invest in stylus pens so that English staff can ‘live mark’ students’ work which is airdropped to them within a lesson. We will also purchase HD cameras so staff can model concepts to students whilst teaching remotely. During the initial period of lockdown, students struggled to understand more complex formulae; these cameras help to capture the different stages, record this on a Zoom which can be sent to students or uploaded to Firefly to support remote learning.

6. Catch up sessions – NEAs / Subject specific changes
‍Due to students isolating, we are aware that a number are falling further behind with NEA work which must be completed under staff supervision. We will therefore run additional sessions on Saturdays and in the holidays so that students can complete their NEAs. Due to the changes from Ofqual, we also need to adapt our curriculum, for example, elements of this funding will pay for the hire of sporting facilities out of school hours to address the practical aspects of Sports’ Studies at GCSE and GCE A level.

7. Reading and Numeracy Catch-up
‍In previous years, we have used Catch-up Numeracy to fund maths staff to work with small groups of students in year 7 who are not secondary school ready. We will continue to do this using the current catch-up funding. Although we cannot run the literacy interventions in the same way as we have done in previous years due to staff absence (maternity leave and long-term shielding), we will continue to monitor the reading ages of each child and deliver timely intervention. Students in year 8 will continue to use Lexia Power-Up if their reading age is 12 months below their biological age. We have devised a guided reading programme to support Year 7 students who currently have a reading age below 10.06. This will target their reading fluency and engagement with reading through a blended learning model, delivered within lessons and at home through videos and google quizzes.  

8. Additional intervention
‍We will run  intervention sessions after school and during the holidays to increase the confidence of our students who have been isolating. We will also create interactive online revision material for these students to access. We have purposefully brought in additional staffing within the Maths LA so that staff can work with small cohorts of students to address any misconceptions students may have gained whilst learning remotely. They will also pre-teach material to some students who we know may have gaps in their schema or be less secure in some topics.

9. Key Stage 5
‍Prior to COVID-19, students requiring additional support and catch up were identified and this commenced after their first PPEs. This entailed a range of strategies such as providing academic mentoring, additional catch up work for them to complete in scheduled private study sessions, and in some cases, free periods being removed and placed with additional private study periods where students work under the supervision of the Sixth Form staff.  Although the government Catch-Up funding is allocated to Students in years 7-11, we have set aside a separate budget from our regular funding to support our Sixth From students. This will range from sourcing additional, subject specific online resources, small group teaching to address gaps in knowledge, purchasing revision guides and ensuring online teaching remains of a good quality for students isolating.

Assessing the impact
‍The impact of this expenditure will be assessed throughout the year via:
· Learning Area Coordinators frequently looking at the progress of learners as they evaluate the impact of the current interventions and adapt these
· Pastoral Teams monitoring attendance, behaviour and student welfare
· SLT analysing performance data and meeting frequently with Learning Area Coordinators and the Pastoral Team to look at the performance, attitude to learning and attendance of individual students and cohorts