COVID Recovery

Our COVID Recovery Catch-Up Programme continues to be implemented as we work hard to close the gaps for all of our students caused by the pandemic.

Our COVID Recovery funding streams have continued over time and remain invaluable in supporting or school‘s provision:

2021-2022 = £82,000
2022-2023 = £3,533
2023-2024 = £57,684

Over time, we have introduced various initiatives which have been embedded into everyday practice but we continue to flex and adapt to meet new needs and new objectives as we are very conscious that the COVID deficit is not a quick-fix.

Nonetheless, the specific recovery initiatives for 2023-2024 include:

Extra Staffing

We have extended the teaching capacity for the Maths Department (+1.0), Science Department (+1.0) and the French Department (+0.4) so that we can operate with smaller groups, or dual taught groups, in order to catch-up on knowledge and understanding in the two subject areas we have identified as the most sequential in terms of building up expertise.

Targeted Catch-Up Boosters

We have extended our wide-ranging booster programme to target children with deficits in their progress during tutor time sessions. These are short-term programmes and are dovetailed around our tutor time package so that key curriculum coverage there is not compromised. The booster programme necessitates us to take some staff of tutoring duties to deliver the sessions in English, Maths, Science, French, History and Geography.

Parents Evenings

We continue to invest in online resources so that Parents Evenings can be staged virtually. This has seen a marked increase in parental involvement and are invaluable in ensuing parents are engaged in catch-up. In addition, we have invested capacity so that non-attenders are chased up promptly and staff training has been guided on how they focus conversions on catch-up and progression.

KS3 Pupil Premium / Disadvantaged Achievement Post

We have utilised temporary TLR3s to address Disadvantaged gaps, but also to work alongside SLT in order to challenge and support under-performance in all students. This programme includes extended funding to support interventions and ranges from residentials to booster classes. These posts are targeted in Maths and Science.

ACE Meetings

We have re-established our ACE Meeting programme and extended it into Key Stage Three so that student and parental meetings are staged throughout the year to address under-achievement and gaps and to provide targeted (and funded) support for specific interventions.

Saturday Schools

We have scheduled in a range of Key Stage Four Saturday Schools through the Autumn Term, particularly focusing on the first Year 11 Mocks. The free Saturday School schedule will be naturally further extended in the Spring and Summer Term as we head towards the final exams. Additionally, we will be offering free sessions in February Half-Term School, Easter Holiday School and June Holiday School.

Learning, Engagement and Attendance Programme (LEAP)

Our new LEAP programme is designed to target students who are school refusers or reluctant attenders and presents a reduced timetable package to pave the way for a full-time return to school. In addition, we dovetail with the Local Authority for home tutoring where appropriate

Evaluation

We regularly review our COVID Catch-Up provision in terms of delivery an effectiveness as it is very much a live programme that responds to needs as they emerge.

In order to support our regular evaluation, we have re-instated Data Checks in Year 11 and Year 13 on a half-termly basis and this information, alongside mock exam results, is used to gauge progress and to steer interventions where required.

The Data Checks also informed KS3 and Year 10 interventions, and whilst clear plans are already formulated, we have retained a flexibility to allow to these to be altered according to need.

Indeed, the school’s historical exam results provide a context of where we sit:

Summer 2019 = Progress 8 Score of +0.60
Summer 2020 = N/A (CAGs)
Summer 2021 = N/A (CAGs)
Summer 2022 = Progress 8 Score of +0.67
Summer 2023 = Progress 8 Score of +0.73

For more information about our COVID Recovery interventions, please contacted Matt Allman, Headteacher, via office@friaryschool.co.uk.