The Government has committed £1 billion of funding to help schools close the gap caused by the disruption to students’ education as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This also includes a one- off universal £650 million Catch-up Premium for the 2020 to 2021 academic year.  The school has been allocated approximately £103,000 to spend on supporting students this academic year and beyond.  

Whilst the premium is allocated to schools on a 'per pupil' basis for students in Years 7 to 11, it is up to schools to decide how they will use the funding. The Government recommends that schools use the Education Endowment Foundation’s (EEF) research led guide to help direct and support schools’ use of this funding.

At Little Heath School, we are adopting the tiered system suggested by EEF’s guide, including:

Teaching and whole-school strategies:

• Supporting great teaching
• Student assessment and feedback

Targeted approaches:

• One to one and small group tuition using the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) - Our preferred provider is NTC Live
• Intervention programmes

Wider Strategies and resources

• Online resources and IT hardware including laptops
• Revision guides and other additional curriculum resources
• Supporting student wellbeing

We have spent the first term of this academic year (2020 -2021) assessing students’ progress, identifying gaps and adapting our curriculum to ensure that gaps are addressed for all students as well as implementing our wider strategies. The targeted approaches will be implemented from January 2022.

Identification of students in need of additional support is ongoing and all funds provided through the Catch-up Premium will be spent or allocated by February 2022.

Summer School 2021

In summer 2021, we ran a Summer School for new Year 7 students transitioning to Little Heath in September 2021. A statement of the activities, outcome and funding can be reviewed below.