Pupil premium strategy statement
This statement details our school’s use of pupil premium (and recovery premium for the 2021 to 2022 academic year) funding to help improve the attainment of our disadvantaged pupils.
It outlines our pupil premium strategy, how we intend to spend the funding in this academic year and the effect last year’s spending of pupil premium had within our school.
In developing this strategy, we have referred to the DfE’s Using Pupil Premium guidance and the EEF guide to using your pupil premium funding effectively.
School overview
Detail | Data |
School name | King Solomon High School |
Number of pupils in school | 1056 |
Proportion (%) of pupil premium eligible pupils | 23.8% |
Academic year/years that our current pupil premium strategy plan covers (3 year plans are recommended) | 2021/2022
to 2024/2025 |
Date this statement was published | December 2021 |
Date on which it will be reviewed | July 2022 |
Statement authorised by | Hannele Reece, Headteacher |
Pupil premium lead | Bradley Abrahams |
Governor / Trustee lead | Kevan Green, Chair of Finance Committee |
Funding overview
Detail | Amount |
Pupil premium funding allocation this academic year | £215,000 |
Recovery premium funding allocation this academic year | £16,160 |
Pupil premium funding carried forward from previous years (enter £0 if not applicable) | £0 |
Total budget for this academic year
If your school is an academy in a trust that pools this funding, state the amount available to your school this academic year |
£231,160 |
Part A: Pupil premium strategy plan
Statement of intent
Our intention is to provide a high-quality education to all our pupils following the strands of the full national curriculum that is inspiring and caters to their needs, enables them graduate with the knowledge and qualifications to pursue their desired pathway, is accessible to them regardless of their prior learning, individual needs or economic background, helps them make a positive difference to others and develops leadership, collaboration and problem solving through enrichment activities.
Our intention is that all pupils, irrespective of their background or the challenges they face, make good progress and achieve high attainment across the curriculum, particularly in EBacc subjects to prepare them for the next stage of their education, university or the world of work. 23.8% of our pupils are eligible for pupil premium funding. We focus our funding on improving all aspects of provision for pupils in a strategic and targeted manner to address academic, pastoral and cultural gaps. The focus of our pupil premium strategy is to support disadvantaged pupils to achieve that goal, including progress for those who are already high attainers. We will consider the challenges faced by vulnerable pupils, such as those who have a social worker, family support worker, are young carers, are experiencing mental health challenges or experiencing other adverse childhood traumas. The strategies we have outlined in this statement is also intended to support their needs, regardless of whether they are disadvantaged or not. High-quality teaching is at the heart of our approach, with a focus on areas in which disadvantaged pupils require the most support. This is proven to have the greatest impact on closing the disadvantage attainment gap and at the same time will benefit the non-disadvantaged pupils in our school. Implicit in the intended outcomes detailed below, is the intention that non-disadvantaged pupils’ attainment will be sustained and improved alongside progress for their disadvantaged peers. Our strategy is also integral to wider school plans for education recovery, notably in its targeted support through the National Tutoring Programme for pupils whose education has been worst affected, including non-disadvantaged pupils. Our approach will be responsive to common challenges and individual needs, rooted in robust diagnostic assessment, not assumptions about the impact of disadvantage. The approaches we have adopted complement each other to help pupils excel. To ensure they are effective we will: · ensure disadvantaged pupils are challenged in the work that they are set · act early to intervene at the point need is identified · adopt a whole school approach in which all staff take responsibility for disadvantaged pupils’ outcomes and raise expectations of what they can achieve · Share effective strategies across all the departments of the school |
Challenges
This details the key challenges to achievement that we have identified among our disadvantaged pupils.
Challenge number | Detail of challenge |
1 | To ensure all students achieve expected levels of progress at KS3/4, including those who are disadvantaged. |
2 | To support all students achieving at least 95% or above attendance. To support and improve wellbeing amongst all pupils, including those who are disadvantaged. |
3 | To expose students to a broad range of cultural capital experiences and support their wider learning and understanding of the world around them, including those who are disadvantaged. |
4 | To ensure that all students, including the disadvantaged, have resilience, aspiration and other personal qualities that promote a positive attitude towards and engage with education. |
5 | To ensure all students, including the disadvantaged, have the tools and equipment they need to access the curriculum. |
Intended outcomes
This explains the outcomes we are aiming for by the end of our current strategy plan, and how we will measure whether they have been achieved.
Intended outcome | Success criteria |
To ensure all students achieve expected levels of progress at KS3/4, including those who are disadvantaged. | Data and internal quality assurance (learning walks, book-checks and department reviews) will show that students are making expected levels of progress. |
To support all students achieving at least 95% or above attendance. To support and improve wellbeing amongst all pupils, including those who are disadvantaged. | Attendance data will be in line with national benchmarks.
Student voice will show students are happy and supported. CPOMS records, counselling records and pastoral logs will show that students are supported and safe. |
To expose students to a broad range of cultural capital experiences and support their wider learning and understanding of the world around them, including those who are disadvantaged. | Curriculum maps have explicitly pinpointed enchainment opportunities that all students experience. |
To ensure that all students, including the disadvantaged, have resilience, aspiration and other personal qualities that promote a positive attitude towards and engage with education. | Student leadership events, scholarship programme and careers meetings log all demonstrate how students are building resilience and aspiration. |
To ensure all students, including the disadvantaged, have the tools and equipment they need to access the curriculum. | Uniform sanction records used to identify students needing support.
Exam and equipment checklists are used to identify those needing support. |
Activity in this academic year
This details how we intend to spend our pupil premium (and recovery premium funding) this academic year to address the challenges listed above.
Teaching (for example, CPD, recruitment and retention)
Budgeted cost: £ 102,065
Activity | Evidence that supports this approach | Challenge number(s) addressed |
Investment in additional teachers in English Department
(£60,065) |
Smaller class sizes increase time teachers can spend with PP students. | 1, 5 |
Employment of Careers Advisor
(£32,000) |
We recognise that all students, especially the disadvantaged, require bespoke advice and support. | 2,4 |
Assistant Heads of Year (Y7-11) (£20,000) | This post supports tracking and attendance interventions for all students, especially the disadvantaged. | 2 |
Targeted academic support (for example, tutoring, one-to-one support structured interventions)
Budgeted cost: £67,760
Activity | Evidence that supports this approach | Challenge number(s) addressed |
NTP
(£12,460) |
Sixth Former Tutors (trained) support students after school in English and Maths to help close gaps.
One to one tuition | EEF (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk) |
1,4,5 |
Employment of Counsellors
(£55,300)
|
We recognise that all students, especially the disadvantaged, require bespoke support. | 2,4
|
Wider strategies (for example, related to attendance, behaviour, wellbeing)
Budgeted cost: £49,335
Activity | Evidence that supports this approach | Challenge number(s) addressed |
Purchasing resources to support delivery of the curriculum to close gaps in knowledge.(£12,000) | Funded textbooks, equipment to allow all students to access the curriculum and complete work set at home. | 1,4,5 |
Purchasing school uniform.(£5750) | Funded uniform for disadvantaged students. | 4 |
Purchasing resources to support curriculum enrichment.(£25,335) | Funded educational visits and guest speakers for disadvantaged students. | 1,3,4,5 |
Purchasing music lesson and equipment.
(£6,250) |
Funded music lessons and equipment for disadvantaged students. | 1,3,4,5 |
Total budgeted cost: £231,160
Part B: Review of outcomes in the previous academic year
Pupil premium strategy outcomes
This details the impact that our pupil premium activity had on pupils in the 2020 to 2021 academic year.
Our internal assessments during 2020/21 suggested that the performance of disadvantaged pupils was lower than in the previous years in key areas of the curriculum.
Our assessment of the reasons for these outcomes points primarily to Covid-19 impact, which disrupted all of our subject areas to varying degrees. As evidenced in schools across the country, partial closure was most detrimental to our disadvantaged pupils, and they were not able to benefit from our pupil premium funded improvements to teaching and targeted interventions to the degree that we intended. The impact was mitigated by our resolution to maintain a high-quality curriculum, including during periods of partial closure, which was aided by a full timetable of live online Teams lessons. Our assessments demonstrated that pupil behaviour, wellbeing and mental health were significantly impacted last year, primarily due to COVID-19 related issues. The impact was particularly acute for disadvantaged pupils. We used pupil premium funding to provide wellbeing support for all pupils, and targeted interventions where required. We are building on that approach in our new plan. |
Externally provided programmes
Programme | Provider |
Counselling/Cognitive Behavioural Therapy | Norwood Counselling Service |
Attendance/Education and Welfare Service | London Borough of Redbridge |
Further information
Additional activity
Our pupil premium strategy will be supplemented by additional activity that is not being funded by pupil premium or recovery premium. That will include: · embedding more effective practice around feedback. EEF evidence demonstrates this has significant benefits for pupils, particularly disadvantaged pupils. · ensuring pupils understand our ‘catch-up’ plan by providing information about the support they will receive (including targeted interventions listed above), how the curriculum will be delivered, and what is expected of them. This will help to address concerns around learning loss – one of the main drivers of pupil anxiety. · utilising support from our local Mental Health Support Team and local behaviour hub, plus funding for CPD from the local authority’s Wellbeing for Education Recovery budget, to support pupils with mild to moderate mental health and wellbeing issues, many of whom are disadvantaged. · offering a wide range of high-quality extracurricular activities to boost wellbeing, behaviour, attendance, and aspiration. Activities (e.g., The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award), will focus on building life skills such as confidence, resilience, and socialising. Disadvantaged pupils will be encouraged and supported to participate. Planning, implementation, and evaluation In planning our new pupil premium strategy, we evaluated why activity undertaken in previous years had not had the degree of impact that we had expected. We also commissioned a pupil premium review to get an external perspective. We triangulated evidence from multiple sources of data including assessments, engagement in class book scrutiny, conversations with parents, students and teachers in order to identify the challenges faced by disadvantaged pupils. We also used the EEF’s families of schools database to view the performance of disadvantaged pupils in school similar to ours and contacted schools with high-performing disadvantaged pupils to learn from their approach. We looked at a number of reports and studies about effective use of pupil premium, the impact of disadvantage on education outcomes and how to address challenges to learning presented by socio-economic disadvantage. We also looked at a number of studies about the impact of the pandemic on disadvantaged pupils. We used the EEF’s implementation guidance to help us develop our strategy and will continue to use it through the implementation of our activities. We have put a robust evaluation framework in place for the duration of our three-year approach and will adjust our plan over time to secure better outcomes for pupils. |