Catch up Strategy

Build Up (Catch Up) Strategy statement 2021/22

The COVID pandemic has caused unprecedented disruption to education since the first school closures in March 2020. Those pupils from the most disadvantaged backgrounds will have been hit particularly hard although it should be acknowledged that ALL pupils have been impacted by the COVID 19 pandemic.

Build Up is the name adopted by Hurstmere School in place of ‘Catch Up,’ based on the principle of building up pupils as result of the pandemic rather than the negative connotation of pupils having to work harder to ‘Catch Up.’

All staff at Hurstmere School recognise the importance of our Build Up provision in ensuring that the impact of the pandemic is mitigated, all pupils return to normal education as soon as possible and are not educationally disadvantaged.

The government announced £1 billion of funding to support children and young people to catch up. This includes a one-off universal £650 million catch-up premium for the 2020 to 2021 academic year to ensure that schools have the support they need to help all pupils make up for lost teaching time.

The government’s COVID 19 Catch up funding was introduced to support schools in mitigating the unique effects of the pandemic on pupils’ progress and attainment. The grant is only available for the 2020-21 academic year.

Schools must use the funding to support pupils to catch up lost learning time. The Education Endowment Foundation produced a guide to support schools in how to spend their catch-up funding which can be found here,

https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/Publications/Covid-19_Resources/Covid-19_support_guide_for_schools.pdf

Covid catch up funding plan