Pupil Premium

Pupil premium strategy statement 

This statement details our school’s use of pupil premium (and recovery premium for the 2021 to 2022 academic year) funding to help improve the attainment of our pupils. Because all our pupils have a learning difficulty and EHCP they are all considered to be vulnerable. At Talbot % of pupils receive pupils premium and 5 students are Looked after. 

Below we have outlined our pupil premium strategy, how we intend to spend the funding in this academic year and the effect that last year’s spending of pupil premium had within our school.  

School overview 

Detail	Data
School name	Talbot Specialist School
Number of pupils in school	204
Proportion (%) of pupil premium eligible pupils	54%
Academic year/years that our current pupil premium strategy plan covers (3 year plans are recommended)	3 years
Date this statement was published	December 2021
Date on which it will be reviewed	September 2022
Statement authorised by	Carolyn Sutcliffe
Pupil premium lead	Karen Halford
Governor / Trustee lead	Debbie Grainger-James

Funding overview 

Detail	Amount
Pupil premium funding allocation this academic year	£72,335
Recovery premium funding allocation this academic year	£24,000 tutoring grant
Pupil premium funding carried forward from previous years (enter £0 if not applicable)	£0
Total budget for this academic year  If your school is an academy in a trust that pools this funding, state the amount available to your school this academic year	£96,335

Part A: Pupil premium strategy plan 

Statement of intent 

The curriculum at Talbot is rich and varied, and personalised to meet the needs of each student.  The focus on individual students ensures that barriers to learning are identified and appropriate interventions and support are put in place so that students are able to enjoy their learning and achieve.  

 

Pupil Premium is used to close any gaps in attainment between pupils in receipt of pupil premium and others. Talbot has no attainment gap to narrow between pupils in receipt of free school meals or Looked After and pupils not in receipt of free schoool meals and not Looked After. However, all our students are vulnerable due to their severe and complex learning difficulties and this budget is used broadly in the following ways: 

• to develop communication skills  
• to provide nurture groups which will develop emotional resilience and improve mental health and well-being  
• to develop and deliver intervention stategies to enable students to make good progress in functional literacy skills.    
• to enable students to access sporting and cultural activities. 

 

A key area for students’ development in Talbot is communication. Pupil Premium is used to ensure that communication strategies are embedded and implemented throughout school in order that pupils can maximise their communication skills, both verbal and pre-verbal. This includes using a range of communication strategies including Makaton, PECS and where appropriate assistive communication technology and aids.  

 

We also use Pupil Premium to offer enrichment and extra-curricular activities which promote self-confidence, independence skills and physical and mental well-being. These include access to sport, outdoor activities and performing arts. This provides essential opportunities to increase cultural capital for students and their families. 

 

The student well-being team identify need and provide personalised support around behaviour, attendance and mental health to students and their families. They are a multi-skilled team who work in partnership with internal and external agencies. 

 

Our aim for our students is that they become confident and resilient young people. We use pupil premium to offer nurture provision for vulnerable students in order to support them to develop resilience and to communicate and manage their emotions. 

 

 

 

 

 

Challenges 

This details the key challenges to achievement that we have identified among our pupils. 

Challenge number	Detail of challenge
1	Many students have communication difficulties and are unable to express themselves
2	Many students have low self esteem, high anxiety and find it difficult to develop emotional self regulation
3	Some students have difficulty in progressing with functional literacy skills and are not yet reading for pleasure
4	Some students have difficulty in progressing with writing skills and are not yet confident, independent writers
5	Some students have limited opportunity to access sporting or cultural opportunities outside school

Intended outcomes  

This explains the outcomes we are aiming for by the end of our current strategy plan, and how we will measure whether they have been achieved. 

Intended outcome	Success criteria
To support the development of communication skills so that all students have effective means of communication and can express their views verbally and pre-verbally	Students have effective methods of verbal or pre-verbal communication which they are able to use in a range of settings and situations in order to express their needs and choices.
To provide nurture groups which will develop emotional resilience and improve mental health and well-being.	The student well-being team identify need and provide personalised support which impacts positively on behaviour, attendance and mental health.
To enable students to become confident, independent readers and develop functional literacy skills	Students make good progress in reading and develop functional reading skills.
To enable students to become confident, independent writers.	Students make good progress in writing and develop functional writing skills.
To offer enrichment and extra-curricular activities which promote self-confidence, independence skills and physical and mental well-being.	Enrichment and extra-curricular activities promote self-confidence, independence skills and improve physical and mental well-being

Activity in this academic year 

This details how we intend to spend our pupil premium (and recovery premium funding) this academic year to address the challenges listed above. 

Teaching  

Budgeted cost: £15,000 

Activity	Evidence that supports this approach	Challenge number(s) addressed
Meetings with individual parents / carers of Y7 pupils to agree communication targets	Code of practice 2014 – engaging parents /carers in their child’s learning  Engagement model – developing partnership between parents / carers and professionals	1
Staff training in communication strategies and interventions including Makaton, Pecs and core vocabulary grids	Impact of high quality training on student outcomes and staff satisfaction and motivation – Wellcome Challenge project report 2021	1
Training for teachers and teaching assistants in attention autism delivered by a qualified practitioner	https://ginadavies.co.uk/	1
Training for teachers and teaching assistants in intensive interaction delivered by a qualified practitioner	https://www.intensiveinteraction.org/	1

 

 

 

Targeted academic support  

Budgeted cost: £40,000 

Activity	Evidence that supports this approach	Challenge number(s) addressed
1:1 structured reading sessions using running reading records for Y7/8 students	Reading continuum within Birmingham Toolkit  https://accesstoeducation.birmingham.gov.uk/product/birmingham-sen-toolkits-language-literacy-and-mathscombined/	3
1:1 structured reading and writing sessions to develop functional literacy skills for Y10/11 pupils	Reading and writing continuums within Birmingham Toolkit  https://accesstoeducation.birmingham.gov.uk/product/birmingham-sen-toolkits-language-literacy-and-mathscombined/   Edexcel functional literacy  https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/qualifications/edexcel-functional-skills.html	3, 4
Individualised              support for students across the school to develop communication skills using high tech and eye gaze technology.	https://www.barnsleyhospital.nhs.uk/assistive-technology/resources-and-information/	1

 

Wider strategies  

Budgeted cost: £40,000 

Activity	Evidence that supports this approach	Challenge number(s) addressed
Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award offered to students in Y10 following the formal curriculum	https://www.dofe.org/	5
Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award offered to students in Y11 following the formal curriculum	https://www.dofe.org/	5
Kick boxing sessions delivered by trained instructors	https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/tips-for-everyday-living/physical-activity-and-your-mental-health/about-physical-activity/	5
Climbing sessions delivered by qualified instructors	https://climbingforallsheffield.com/about/	5
Visits to the theatre and other cultural venues	https://early-education.org.uk/cultural-capital/	5
Nurture provision delivered by a specially trained HLTA, including nurture groups and 1:1 support	TISUK https://www.traumainformedschools.co.uk/   Boxall profile   https://www.nurtureuk.org/what-we-do/the-boxall-profile	2
Working with families to provide advice and guidance to support good attendance	https://www.traumainformedschools.co.uk/	2

 

Total budgeted cost: £ 95,000  

Part B: Review of outcomes in the previous academic year 

Pupil premium strategy outcomes 

This details the impact that our pupil premium activity had on pupils in the 2020 to 2021 academic year.  

The priorities in our Pupil premium strategy for 2020/21 were: 

• To support the development of communication skills so that all students have effective means of communication and can express their views verbally and pre-verbally 
• To support the emotional health and well-being of students. To enable students to develop resilience, express their feelings and manage their emotions. 
• Personalised interventions to support behaviour, attendance and mental health 
• To enable students to go off-site to develop social and independence skills, and experience cultural opportunities 
• To give students access to a range of creative and cultural activities 
• To provide enrichment activities which improve students’ health and well-being, and develop social and cooperative skills  

Due to the pandemic focus shifted to supporting our students to continue learning and to achieve their learning intentions at home during periods of absence from face to face teaching. The student well-being team worked hard to support pupils to return to school following long periods of absence and the nurture team was focussed on enabling students to make sense of their emotions and manage their high levels of anxiety. Off-site enrichment and cultural visits were very restricted  

There continued to be no significant discrepancy between the achievement of students in receipt of pupil premium and others. 

The data below shows the number of individual learning intentions met by students in May 2021 

Phase	Pupil Premium	Non Pupil Premium	Males	Females
Phase 1	31 students  102/124 LI’s Met  82%	31 students  106/124 LI’s Met  85%	46 students  154/184 LI’s Met  84%	16 students  54/64 LI’s Met  84%
Phase 2	35 students  125/140 LI’s Met  89%	28 students  99/112 LI’s Met  88%	43 students  149/172 LI’s Met  87%	20 students  75/80 LI’s Met  94%
Post 16	23 students  86/92 LI’s Met  93%	20 students  70/80 LI’s Met  88%	24 students  86/96 LI’s Met  90%	19 students  70/76 LI’s Met  92%
Total	89 students  313/356 LI’s Met  88%	79 students  275/316 LI’s Met  87%	113 students  389/452 LI’s Met  86%	55 students  199/220 LI’s Met  90%

 

The data below shows the number of individual learning intentions met by students in July 2021 

 

Phase	Pupil Premium	Non Pupil Premium	Males	Females
Phase 1	33 students  104/132 LI’s Met  79%	34 students  115/136 LI’s M et  86%	50 students  164/200 LI’s Met  82%	17 students  56/68 LI’s Met  82%
Phase 2	36 students  137/144 LI’s Met  95%	29 students  103/116 LI’s Met  89%	44 students  163/176 LI’s Met  93%	21 students  77/84 LI’s Met  92%
Post 16	23 students  84/88 LI’s Met  95%	20 students  72/76 LI’s Met  95%	24 students  92/96 LI’s Met  96%	19 students  72/76 LI’s Met  95%
Total	91 students  324/360 LI’s Met  90%	84 students  290/332 LI’s Met  87%	118 students  410/466 LI’s Met  88%	57 students  204/226 LI’s Met  90%

The achievement of students in receipt of pupil premium was slightly higher than that of pupils not in receipt of pupil premium in both May and July 2021. 

 

The number of students accessing low tech and high tech communication aids increased in 2020-21:  

Means of communication	2019-20	2020-21
High tech aid	9 students	13 students + three at the assessment trial stage.
Low tech aids	44 students	57 students
Switch Use	16 students	20 students
Makaton	21 students	28 students