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Evaluation of 2020-21

The impact of Covid 19 has affected the delivery of the school’s strategy this year and also necessitated the implementation of new approaches and actions.

 

The impact of our strategy

Children’s Wellbeing Practitioner (CWP)- impact was that all PPG families who wanted access to the service were supported and the  school’s safeguarding team were able to carry out joint working with the service, to provide a “wrap around” approach that ensured no families were detached from education or services. Greater reporting of children’s anxiety was matched by the capacity to respond and support quickly.

  • The CWP continued to support families remotely during lockdown, delivering anxiety (dynamically adjusted to support lockdown specific concerns) or behaviour programmes.
  • The CWP service supported the school with attendance and involvement, where several vulnerable families needed bespoke support. For all of these families, additional service support has been gained.
  • In the summer term, the CWP team, delivered a series of “Worry Ninja” workshops which were designed to support return to school, in addition to the transition to secondary school. Pupils and staff fed back very positively, viewing this as having significant impact, particularly in reassuring those who were worried about transitioning to secondary schools that they hadn’t been able to visit.
  • The children who were also PPG were amongst the pupils reporting higher anxiety, regarding transition and the school was able to respond to the CWP identification of particular children with bespoke transition booklets and 1;1 support.

 

Homework club

The impact was carefully monitored engagement with both remote and in school learning. No pupils were disenfranchised through home circumstance or capacity to support home learning, as places at school were offered, encouraged and supported

  • Homework club did not take place due to Covid, but all PPG pupils were actively encouraged to come into school, particularly during the second lockdown and where that was accepted, the impact was greater access to small group and individual support, which provided more support than a weekly homework club provision.
  • Academic and emotional support through the small numbers in lockdown school resulted in strong  
  • Devices were provided to all PPG children, where needed to support homeworking
  • PPG children were prioritised for the intervention/ catch up groups that took place when school was able to be open

 

Parental support

Due to Covid, this became focused on wellbeing, anxiety and financial support.

The impact of all of the below was to maintain engagement and wellbeing of PPG families and children. Families who were under stress were quickly identified and supported by a range of staff members and /or other services.

  • Families in receipt of free school meals were provided with healthy food hampers in lockdown one
  • Clothing grants were obtained for some families
  • The school supported two families with admissions appeals/ challenges
  • Vulnerable families were targeted for online Parent Gym or CWP support, where helpful
  • All vulnerable families received regular wellbeing/ risk assessment calls and Zooms and were further encouraged into school if concerns arose around learning or wellbeing
  • Face to face appointments were offered for priority families
  • Some families were directly supported by the school, in conjunction with The Virtual School, through the secondary school admissions process

 

Staff Training

The PPG co-ordinator led the school on completing the Attachment Friendly Schools Award. The impact is that all staff have received in depth training that is highly relevant for supporting post adoption, looked after children and children who may have been impacted by or disrupted by trauma. Attachment aware approaches are embedded in practice.

Audits from the beginning and end of the year reflected a significant increase in staff confidence.

  • Staff are confident to use attachment strategies consistently and confidently, to support pupils across the profiles of our PPG cohort
  • There were no fixed term exclusions for any of our PPG students

 

Attendance for PPG pupils was 94% against 93% for the whole school

 

School events were all on-line and were largely limited to parent consultations.

Improved attendance at these may also have been impacted by the relative ease of Zoom.

 

Progress and Attainment

Progress and attainment were assessed using standardised scores as well as teacher assessment and comparisons were made across the year.

  • 33% of children recorded as PPG also have an identified special educational need. 15% of these children also have an Education Health and Care Plan.

Progress

  • English- 64% of pupils made expected or more than expected progress where there was no previous data for 12% of pupils
  • Maths- 73% of pupils made expected or more than expected progress where there was no previous data for 12% of pupils

Attainment

  • 46% of pupils attained at age expected in both English and Maths. The same pupils achieved in both areas
  • For 12% of pupils, there was no previous attainment data
  • 36% of pupils not attaining at age expected levels, were also pupils with SEND