Teachers and families across the country have provided extraordinary support to help children learn at home during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, for many children, the disruption caused by school closures will have had a negative impact on learning and wellbeing. 

Here we outline the strategies implemented to support our pupils effectively as a response to the pandemic: 

• Great teaching is the most important lever to improve outcomes for our pupils. We have covered curriculum managers to support the process of quality assuring subject planning, ensuring that these plans meet our minimum standards, which supports effective sequences of teaching and learning. 

• Robust assessment has enabled us to determine how to most effectively support our pupils. We have administered GL testing in English, Maths and Science for all pupils and used the reports generated by this service to identify how the pandemic has affected pupil performance. 

• Our catch-up intervention groups use this data to target pupils with the greatest gaps and target common misconceptions. 

• Four additional members of staff have been employed to deliver high quality one to one and small group tuition as part of our literacy and numeracy catch-up strategy. The intervention team work closely with teachers to ensure intervention therapy sessions are tailored to the needs of the pupils and linked to the curriculum. 

• Additional sets have been incorporated into our curriculum model to ensure smaller group sizes in English and Maths target groups (pupils working below age related expectations.) 

• All teaching staff have received CPD on metacognition to further promote an awareness of how pupils learn. We have identified, as a whole staff, that we need pupils to be more independent and resilient. This approach encourages pupils to take more control of and responsibility for their learning journeys which will help them to build those skills. 

• To enable access to a blended learning model, we have provided ongoing technical support and ensured that our most vulnerable pupils have access to laptops in order to participate in virtual teaching and learning. In some cases, the school has provided a WIFI dongle so that pupils have access to the internet. 

• Knowledge organisers have been created by each head of subject to summarise key facts or information that pupils need to know and be able to recall in order to master a unit or topic. Typically, an organiser fits onto one to two pages of A4, which helps students to visualise the layout of the page, which in turn helps them to memorise the information better. Knowledge organisers will be made available at the start of each unit to help them remember what they are learning and to help them to see the bigger learning journey in their subjects. 

A recovery Curriculum has been implemented based on the 5 levers: 

Lever 1 – Rebuild Relationships –  

• 2 members of staff trained as Trauma Informed School’s practitioners. (RU and JA) 

• Training for all staff on importance of a Relationship based approach and launch of new Behaviour for Learning and Positive relationships policy. Meet and Greets on the gate or class door.  

• PSCHE Curriculum adapted to ensure relevance. (First term on Building connectedness and Mental Health.) 

Lever 2 - Rebuild the Learning Community and Support 

• Increase in size of the pastoral support team. (Pupil Premium Support and Emotional support team/behaviour recovery.) 

• Signs of Success approach to build on the positives of communication built up during school closures. 

• Mood check-in boards 

• School Values underpin what we do 

• Activities linked to the ‘houses’ to increase sense of belonging 

• All pupils undertaken ‘Landscape of the mind’ questionnaire to allow for more tailored support. 

• Epraise used to report concerns 

• Hello Yellow (Mental Health) and Anti-bullying day marked with activities. 

• Motional used in school as part of a graduated approach 

• Staff have attended variety of relevant training including ‘Get safe’ ‘Understanding Trauma’ ‘Anti-Bullying Alliance’ COVID-19 Response training. 

• Consolidation of previous year’s work initially 

• Low stakes testing and assessment during first half term. 

• Fortnightly SILT meetings 

• Weekly Head of year Meetings – including focus on attendance 

• All policies updated with COVID addendum’s where necessary. (Safeguarding, Attendance, Behaviour.) 

• Early Help Model started last year built upon. 

Lever 3 - Transparent Curriculum 

• Gaps filled but not at expense of subjects such as Art/PE which have recognised mental health benefits 

• PSHCE Streamlined to ensure that RSE is covered and children’s mental Health Supported 

• Testing/assessment done in a way which is accessible and non-threatening to the child. Supportive and builds on positive relationships. 

 
Lever 4 – Metacognition 

• Training with all staff done as part of a TED. 

• Metacognition a part of all Performance Management 

• Metacognition enrichment day on 9.12.20 

Lever 5 -Space-to be, to rediscover self, and to find their voice on learning in this issue.