In 2021, the government awarded all schools with a grant to spend on catch-up as a result of COVID-19. This is called the COVID catch-up premium grant and it was up to schools to decide how they spend it. 

At St Augustine's we used our funding to employ a catch-up teacher, Mrs Theresa Gee. Mrs Gee taught groups of children across the school to work on identified interventions in maths and English. The impact of this has been measured with entry tests at the start and exit tests at the end. In this way we were able to measure a very positive impact on the children's learning, filling the gaps caused by absences due to COVID.

We then decided to focus on phonics across KS1 and lower KS2. Small groups go out of class to receive focused and targeted phonics intervention lessons, based on assessment 'gap analysis' conducted at the beginning of the term. Again, entry and exit data informed us of the impact of this catch-up programme. You may have been contacted by your child's class teacher to request that they arrive at school at 8:30am for this or another intervention.