BPS PUPIL PREMIUM SUMMARY 2020/21 & STRATEGY 2021/22, 2022/23

(See documents at bottom of page)

"Successful schools have a clear vision for what all their pupils will achieve through high quality teaching, with an ethos that reinforces aspiration and attainment for all. They realise the importance of getting the basics right, like attendance and behaviour, and understand that failing to put these building blocks in place will undermine the effectiveness of the pupil premium in raising standards. Successful schools adopt a whole school approach to their use of the pupil premium that delivers on the full potential of every pupil, including nurturing their more able pupils to excel. Successful schools deploy the best staff to support their most disadvantaged pupils, and use their resources to develop the skills and roles of their teachers and teaching assistants." (Supporting the attainment of Disadvantaged Pupils, Nov 15).

DISADVANTAGES THAT PUPIL PREMIUM STUDENTS MAY FACE AT BPS

It is problematic to make generalisations regarding the type of disadvantages that pupils whose family are eligible for Pupil Premium may face. Some are very high attainers; some come to school significantly behind age expected levels of attainment. Some are currently eligible for FSM; others may have been in the past. Some live in very challenging home environments; others do not. However some of the disadvantages that some BPS pupils who are Pupil Premium face are:

• Low levels of literacy and/or numeracy
• Few books in the home
• Cramped home conditions which make independent study a challenge
• Insufficient and irregular supply of nourishing meals
• Lack of money for resources to support the curriculum
• Lack of opportunities to learn beyond the taught curriculum.

At Beauliueu, we are committed to investing in all initiatives we deem necessary to ensure that our disadvantaged and more vulnerable students flourish with us. Below you can read about a number of investments we make to ensure all of our children have the support needed to fulfil their full potential. These investments add up to far more than our total Pupil Premium Grant. Some are funded (partially) through other specific streams e.g. Catch-up Premium and others through more general funding.

Quality first teaching is at the heart of raising the progress and attainment for every child at BPS especially for vulnerable pupils and those receiving pupil premium funding.  High quality support is given to teachers through regular line management with a member of the senior team, high quality CPD is delivered based on the needs of our teachers and the pupils.  Regular learning walks, book looks and opportunities for peer observation are built into the programme for all staff. Funding is therefore used for release time for teachers and leaders in supporting them with this provision. 

The Maths Mastery teaching model and CPD training is provided for all new members of staff and regular CPD for all staff throughout the year through the online resources portal. Funding also allows for the Maths Lead to attend termly CPD sessions with Maths Mastery and attend termly CPD. This ensures that all teachers are trained by Maths Mastery and supported ensuring the delivery of the programme is highly effective allowing pupils to make outstanding progress.

External Rocket Phonics CPD training is provided for all new members to enable them to ensure that all phonics lessons are planned and delivered to the highest standard and allowing pupils to make outstanding progress and attainment. Funding is also used to provide an ‘out of class’ Phonics Lead who delivers bespoke training and in class support to each teacher delivering the programme. 

Funding has also been spent on an online maths programme called Sparx Maths which enables an in-school and at-home digital platform to deliver Maths in a different but complementary way to the traditional classroom approach. Parents can to support their child at home with maths through this platform and even improve their own maths! 

At Beaulieu we have chosen to invest in a longer school day in KS3 and KS4. This means that our children are able to have 5 Maths and English lessons each week and 4 Science, Spanish and Humanities lessons per week too. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds can sometimes have barriers at home that make homework more difficult to complete and to a high standard. A longer school day means that our children spend more time in school, working with their subject specialist teachers to mitigate this possible disadvantage. 

At Beaulieu, the value of out of hours learning and attending co-curricular classes is something that we are keenly aware of, especially for those children who do not come from backgrounds where such opportunities are being provided and funded by the family. All PP students have access to our extensive co-curricular programme for which there are no charges incurred.

At Beaulieu we have invested in Lexia, a reading programme that helps teachers simultaneously address gaps in fundamental literacy skills while helping students build the higher-order skills they need to comprehend, analyse, evaluate, and compare increasingly complex literary and informational texts. Blending online student-driven explicit instruction with offline teacher-delivered lessons and activities, Lexia empowers secondary teachers, regardless of their background or expertise in reading, to deliver the exact instruction each student needs to become a proficient reader. Reading is so important at Beaulieu and the more proficient our children can be in their reading, the better they can access the wider curriculum.

At Beaulieu we invest in Accelerated Reader. We have also dedicated an hour in our timetable to this lesson and for the same reasons described above. AR is more than just reading, each student reads a book, takes an online quiz, and gets immediate feedback. Students respond to regular feedback and are motivated to make progress with their reading skills. AR forms a complete reading practice and assessment solution for students of all ages and abilities. AR gives teachers the information they need to monitor students' reading and make informed decisions to guide their future learning. A comprehensive set of reports reveals how much a student has been reading, at what level of complexity, and how well they have understood what they have read. Vocabulary growth and literacy skills are also measured, giving teachers insight into how well students have responded to reading schemes and class instruction.

We believe that times tables are important. Learners more proficient with these can access many parts of the Maths curriculum more successfully. From Year 2 and into the secondary phase, children have regular access to Times Tables Rockstars and a carefully sequenced programme of daily times tables practice. Each week concentrates on a different times table, with a recommended consolidation week for rehearsing the tables that have recently been practised every third week or so.

We invest in the Complete Mathematics TUTOR programme and our identified students are working through the 'secondary ready' course on the platform.

From January 2021 we are overstaffed in English by 8 hours. These additional hours give us the flexibility for additional interventions, small group teaching and the ability to respond and facilitate the learning of identified children, including disadvantaged children in English / Reading.