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Hilbre High School Humanities College

Hilbre High School
Humanities College

Year 7 Literacy and Numeracy Catch-Up Premium

Year 7 Literacy Catch-Up:

At Hilbre we implement programmes to enable all students to reach their potential in the key literacy skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening. The Ruth Miskin Read Write Inc. ‘Fresh Start’ scheme targets selected Year 7 pupils with the aim of improving the accuracy and fluency of reading. ‘Fresh Start’ is a lively and age- appropriate approach. It matches our students’ increasing knowledge of phonics and ‘tricky’ words. Students are taught in English curriculum time, the 44 speech sounds in the English alphabet. These are practised frequently until they can read them effortlessly. Tricky words (high frequency words that are not phonetically regular) are also practised again and again until the students can read them with ease. This is because students need regular practice to get better at something, just like playing an instrument.

This helps to improve their comprehension skills and in turn, has a positive effect on their understanding of every subject in the curriculum. Alongside reading as part of their curriculum entitlement, we expect our students to rapidly build on their spelling knowledge and become more adventurous in their vocabulary choices. ‘Fresh Start’ has an excellent track-record of raising literacy levels and we have a team of enthusiastic and committed staff to facilitate the scheme.

The Literacy Catch-Up Team are committed to enhancing each student’s skills as readers and writers.

Year 7 Numeracy Catch-Up:

At Hilbre High School, we have bought-in to be part of the Arks Academy Mathematics Mastery Programme. This is a long term investment for the professional development of all the staff in the Mathematics’ Department. We work in partnership with Mathematics Mastery – being provided with ongoing focused training, high-quality curriculum resources and specialist support.

The curriculum is designed so that it is accessible to all students, no matter their prior attainment. Every child can enjoy and succeed in Mathematics at Hilbre. The growth mindset philosophy of Mathematics Mastery enables pupils to develop resilience and confidence. Students are encouraged to solve new problems in unfamiliar contexts; identifying, applying and connecting ideas enables pupils to tackle new and more complex problems.

Mathematics Mastery provides an additional 30 coaching lessons that are intended to run alongside the Mastery scheme of work. These additional sessions are designed to support students with core concepts and number work. They are delivered in small groups (maximum of 4 students) by a Mathematics Specialist Teaching Assistant.

Funding Last Year 2019-20:

Funding Allocation 2019-20: £21,500

In 2019-20 spending went directly on improvement packages, as outlined above, for both literacy and numeracy, run through the maths and English departments.

Year 7 Catch-Up Funding 2019-20: Impact:

Measuring impact of the Year 7 Catch-Up funding in 2019-20 is problematic, due to the missed education because of school Covid closures. The following numbers give an indication that students in literacy and mathematics, with the lowest scaled scores upon entry (our estimated equivalent of the 'old' National Curriculum Grade 3) largely achieved on or above target

In literacy, of the 19 students with the lowest scaled scores upon entry, 18 (95%) completed Year 7 on or above their English Language ‘pathway’ target.

In Numeracy, of the 20 students with the lowest scaled scores upon entry, 15 (75%) completed Year 7 on or above their mathematics ‘pathway’ target.