Pupil Premium at Redwood Primary School

What is the Pupil Premium?

The Pupil Premium funding is additional funding that is provided to schools on top of their main funding. It was introduced by the government in April 2011 and was designed to give additional money to support raising the attainment of children in receipt of Free School Meals (FSM) or those who have been eligible in the past 6 years, children whose parents serve in the armed forces as well as children who have been adopted from care.  These groups of children have been identified nationally as achieving at a lower level than children from less disadvantaged backgrounds.

Where does the money come from?

At Redwood, we receive money based upon the number of children who are eligible for Free School Meals, children who have parents serving in the armed forces and children who have been continuously in local authority looked after care for at least six months, including adopted children from care.  The purpose of the Pupil Premium is to help school to provide targeted support for vulnerable children – not necessarily children who qualify for Free School Meals. 

Further information below outlines Redwood’s ethos and approach as to how we use Pupil Premium Funding including the ways in which we use it to support the learning and wellbeing of our children at Redwood.

Supporting pupil premium children at Redwood.

Redwood is a large multi-cultural school in the heart of Derby. We value the uniqueness of all our pupils and children are encouraged to be proud of themselves, their culture, religion and heritage. Our aim is to equip all children to be lifelong learners and responsible and active citizens, by providing them with the skills and attitudes needed for this.

Our school values help children SHINE and we, at Redwood, believe that these values support the children in our care to achieve their very best, irrespective of their starting point in life.

            Show respect in everything they say and do,

                                  Hard-working and ready to learn,

  Independent and can work as a team,

                                  Not afraid to make mistakes,   

                                  Everyone matters

To support our SHINE values, every child at Redwood has a passport of experiences that, throughout their school life with us, will enable them to participate in a range of activities that include, amongst many other things; putting on a play, visiting London, making a den, visiting the seaside and having a sleepover at school! Children also meet a range of people who don’t work at Redwood during their time with us.  These include people who work for Rolls-Royce, NHS workers, university staff, workshop leaders and sports leaders - all in an attempt to raise aspirations for all.

We have a well-designed curriculum that meets the needs of Redwood children. Our principles are embedded into all areas of teaching and learning throughout school. They are displayed in classrooms and children are taught what these mean via lesson links and assembly themes.

If you visit Redwood, you will meet enthusiastic, well-behaved, polite, caring children who are life-long learners at the beginning of their journey.

Attainment:

Our expectation at Redwood is for 85% of children in every year group to achieve Age Related Expectations in Reading, Writing and Maths.

All teachers know who their pupil premium children are and attainment of this group is specifically addressed in teacher performance management targets.

Half-termly data drill-downs and pupil progress meetings highlight the specific academic needs for pupil premium children.  Interventions and tutor-support programmes are tailored appropriately.

Attendance and behaviour:

At Redwood, we have a behaviour policy that is consistent with a clear reward and sanction system.  We use the Class Dojo system to reward children for positive behaviour in a range of situations. 

Where specific behaviours need to be addressed, we support children through our nurture programme - learning mentors and our Nest and Rockpool teams are involved in this high-quality area of support.  Boxall profiles are used to identify areas of need so that support can be tailored to individual children’s needs.

We reward children for good attendance (whole class and individually) and have a close working relationship with our Education Welfare Officer who will make home visits alongside our attendance officer when there are concerns. 

Social, Emotional and Mental Health.

At Redwood we are proud recipients of the Carnegie Gold Award for Mental Health and this enables us to meet the emotional needs of all children.  We do this through regular R-Time sessions, our PSHE ‘Jigsaw’ scheme, our pastoral support programme run by learning mentors and high-quality CPD for all staff. 

We have staff trained in attachment support, theraplay, Lego Therapy and sensory circuits and use these to meet the specific needs of children. 

Our ‘Nest’ and ‘Rockpool’ support children who find some aspects of school a little difficult.  Children who attend the nurture sessions look after chickens, garden, bake and produce art (amongst other things) that supports them to be successful both socially and emotionally as well as academically. 

Teaching: 

Our high quality first teaching is the main area in which we support children with their learning.  There is the opportunity for teachers to observe each other in order to improve practice.   

Through our monitoring programme, we aim for all teaching at Redwood to be good or better.  To support this, we have regular book scrutinies, learning walks, pupil progress meetings and moderation sessions. Pupil Premium children are one group who are at the forefront of our school monitoring plan. Ongoing CPD is a tool that we use to maintain our ambitious target of 100% of lessons being good or better.

Meeting Individual needs of all children at Redwood:

• We have a tailored curriculum here at Redwood that is linked to the National Curriculum as well as being specifically designed to raise aspirations and attainment.  (Please see the curriculum section of our website for further information).

• We use R-time to develop children’s skills in order to:

• build respectful relationships and good manners.
• enable children to develop lifelong social skills.
• reduce bullying.
• improve behaviour.

• We have a marking policy which is designed to move children’s learning on. Specific feedback is given to children and they have to respond to this, thus demonstrating new understanding.

• We have a full time SENDco who ensures all targets for children with SEN are SMART. These targets are reviewed regularly and parents are involved at all steps of the process. Swift and efficient procedures are in place for those children who need support from outside agencies.

• The pupil premium lead tracks all children in receipt of pupil premium funding to see what pastoral support, enrichment and intervention programmes (if needed) they receive throughout their time at Redwood. Support received from school and outside agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic is monitored as well as support with school uniform and paying for school trips.  Attendance is monitored and a close working relationship with the school’s attendance officer allows for support with attendance, where needed. Alongside this, data for each pupil premium child is monitored termly, and tailored intervention programmes are designed alongside the maths and literacy leads and class teachers in order to accelerate progress.  

• All classes have Ipads on top of the class sets we have in school and all families in receipt of pupil premium funding have a tablet to use at home to support learning.

• As part of our reading enrichment at Redwood, all children in receipt of Pupil Premium Funding have received six high quality books to keep.  These books are linked to the school curriculum and are different depending upon which year group children are in. Books include an information book about Ancient Egypt, a story about the rainforest and  ones written by authors such as Marcus Rashford, Oliver Jeffers and Carol Ann Duffy.