Pupil Premium & Sports Premium

Research shows that disadvantaged and/ or vulnerable pupils can particularly struggle with: Attachment relationships with adults | Managing their peer relationships | Managing their feelings and behaviour | Coping with transitions | Developing their executive functioning skills.

We therefore use our Pupil Premium funding to;

1. Provide nurture and relationships through: • Funded breakfast club places which allow children to settle calmly into the school day. • Providing meet and greets for children at the start of the day with our ELSA or other suitable adult. • Training and supporting staff to provide key attachment relationships with regular 1:1 ‘attachment time’ built into children's timetables.

2. Scaffold children's social skills and peer relationships, for example through: • Social skills groups, friendship groups or Circle of Friends interventions. • Lunchtime clubs with opportunities to practise social skills. (eating meals together, adult led activities modelling winning and losing etc.) • Training midday supervisors to provide structured play at break times and provision of resources. • Facilitating friendships e.g. through a buddy scheme or peer mentoring initiative; lunch ‘Buddy’ scheme.

3. Support emotional literacy and emotion regulation through: • Emotional literacy and emotion regulation groups, including anger management. • Appointing and training an Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (ELSA). • Providing calm boxes and staff to spend 1:1 time helping children to regulate themselves. • Providing calm zones in classrooms and centrally within the school.

4. Support children to cope with transitions and change by: • Providing additional structure during break and lunchtimes. • Providing safe spaces for children to come to throughout the school day. • Appointing a transition worker to support children through the Year 6 to Year 7 transition. • Identifying a group of staff who can provide cover for absence, reducing the need for external supply staff. Class LSA’s as far as possible, familiar with children and curriculum. • Spending time preparing children for change in advance e.g. using social stories or visual timetables. • Liaising closely with parents and guardians who can help their children prepare for and cope with change.

5. Develop children’s executive functioning skills through: • Training staff in understanding and supporting executive functioning skill development in the classroom and on the playground. Help children to plan and organise the completion of a task, support their own working memory, encourage cognitive flexibility and exercise inhibitory control. • Providing individual and group sessions which focus on scaffolding the skills needed. • Providing coaching for children who struggle to plan and organize e.g. check-ins to ensure they have books and equipment, have recorded the homework etc.

6. Address barriers to information sharing and joint working by: • Developing policies and procedures which ensure that key information about children’s needs is shared with all key staff coming into contact with them. • Identifying a named member of staff who liaises with the parents or guardians and facilitates regular meetings to discuss the child’s need and progress.