Use of Pupil Premium at Inaura 2016/17
Pupil Premium at Inaura has been spent in various ways this year. It has been used for specific learning resources (particularly for literacy and numeracy) and training for staff, and has partially funded a specialist teacher to work with staff and certain pupils, doing specialist assessments for dyslexia, advising on planning and giving extra lessons. In addition, Pupil Premium has been spent on extra ways of developing pupils’ social and emotional skills. Social and emotional difficulties are the main barriers to learning for the children and young people at Inaura, and therefore an important area on which to focus additional spending.
Here is how the Pupil Premium has been spent in more detail:
Teaching and Learning
Resources for literacy have been bought to improve literacy, in reading, writing, speaking and listening at all levels.
For example, Nessy,an online literacy programme was bought to encourage a particular student to work on his literacy and numeracy and also learn to touch type. It gives him a fun and effective way to learn, and he can use it at home and at school.
Black Sheep Speech and Language Worksheets were purchased for another student with difficulties in this area and used in specific one to one daily Speech and language sessions with teacher Jane Wright.
Trugs systematic synthetic phonics literacy games were purchased in duplicate so that a student could use them at school and at home with his foster carer’s support. Involving the carer in this way helped to engage the student and pass on the message that everyone is concerned and involved in his education and everybody is working together. Literacy games are really effective ways of improving literacy at the same time as practicing social skills, such as taking turns, listening, and accepting winning or losing. These skills are what many of our student lack, and the more varied opportunities we can provide for practising them the better.
Other spending
Pupil Premium has also been spent on Creative Music Therapy for several students to help build their confidence, learn new ways to express themselves and increase their creativity while learning musical skills.
It also helped to fund a cross-curricular boat trip to Flat Holm Island to look at a cholera museum, war defences, rare birds, a fossilised beach and the site of Marconi’s first telegraph. This brought in history, science and geography, all on one day, in an exciting and enjoyable way. Staff reported that the group bonded well on the day, supporting those who were nervous about the boat trip and encouraging each other. The students all did preparatory work before they went, researching the site and studying maps, as well as making a display about the trip afterwards, which was a good demonstration of writing for a particular audience.
Payments for extra sessions with Pause and Engage, a mentoring group in North Somerset, were also authorised from Pupil Premium to help a student transition from being out of education back into fulltime school.
Another student had the transport costs authorised for weekly transition visits to a mainstream school. These visits helped to calm his worries about moving from a small special school with less than 30 students to a large mainstream comprehensive, and built up his confidence so that he eventually transitioned successfully back into mainstream after approximately 5 years at Inaura.
Horse riding lessons have been funded for several students from Pupil Premium. These sessions have built up self-confidence at the same time as providing physical exercise and learning how to communicate with an animal. Many of the young people at Inaura struggle with social communication skills such as reading body language, and working with horses teaches them about different ways of communicating and how to read non-verbal signals.
Pupil Premium funding also helped towards group sessions of Parkour, which helped coordination skills at the same time as developing the essential social skills of taking turns, working as a group and following instructions.This in turn has increased self-confidence.