Pupil Premium Strategy Statement 25/26
- 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 disadvantaged pupils.
It outlines 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.
- Academy overview
Detail | Data |
Academy name | Co-op Academy Rathbone |
Number of pupils in academy | 70 |
Proportion (%) of pupil premium eligible pupils | 83.82% |
Academic year/years that our current pupil premium strategy plan covers (3 year plans are recommended) | 25/26 |
Date this statement was published | 01/11/25 |
Date on which it will be reviewed | 01/09/26 |
Statement authorised by | Stephen Brice |
Pupil premium lead | Sean Jones |
Governor / Trustee lead | Liza Watts |
Funding overview
Detail | Amount |
Pupil premium funding allocation this academic year | £ 72 520 |
Recovery premium funding allocation this academic year | £ |
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 | £72,520 |
Part A: Pupil premium strategy plan
Statement of intent
Statement of intent | |
Ultimate Objectives for our Disadvantaged Children We are ambitious for all our pupils, including our disadvantaged children, and aim to ensure they thrive personally, emotionally, and academically. Our ultimate objectives are that they will be:
How our Current Pupil Premium Plan Addresses these Objectives Our Pupil Premium Strategy is a multi-year plan (currently in its first year) focused on three key areas identified using the EEF Implementation Guidance Report: Communication, Language and Literacy (CLL); cultural and aspirational opportunities; and readiness for learning. We follow the EEF’s tiered approach, allocating funds to high-quality teaching , targeted academic support, and wider strategies. Tier 1: High-Quality Teaching (Do what matters most)
Tier 2: Targeted Academic Support (Equipped to progress) We ensure targeted support meets the specific needs of our disadvantaged pupils, particularly those with Special Educational Needs (100% of our PP children have SEN status):
Tier 3: Wider Strategies (Show we care and Succeed together) We aim to develop the whole child , fostering personal growth and promoting pro-social behaviours and a sense of community:
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Challenges
- This details the key challenges to achievement that we have identified among our disadvantaged pupils.
Challenge number | Detail of challenge |
1 | Loss of learning on entry into school (either through permanent exclusion, seclusion or reduced timetables in mainstream settings) |
2 | Poor Speech and language and vocabulary knowledge |
3 | Emotional regulation and metacognition |
4 | Ability to play, move with control and listen |
5 | Fine and gross motor skills |
6 | Poor literacy and numeracy skills |
7 | Low parental engagement |
8 | Limited future aspirations; low value on education |
9 | Concern/worry about home or trauma (including attachment) (Domestic Violence; poverty, family dysfunction affect a lot of our children) |
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 develop a culture where communication, language and literacy is at the heart of our curriculum | Improved speech, language and vocabulary use in KS1 impacting on improved results in Y1 reading assessments. All physical speech impediment pupils make significant progress in their enunciation and social interaction language (3 pupils) using the NHS speech and language toolkit and dedicated training from the trust SALT director https://www.cpft.nhs.uk/speech-and-language-therapy-toolkit/ An increased number of disadvantaged pupils being able to write with cohesion at the end of KS2. An increase in the number of disadvantaged pupils meeting expected Reading standard at the end of KS2 in Year 1 of PP strategy (currently 15%) An increase in the number of disadvantaged pupils meeting expected Phonics standard at the end of Year 2 (in Year 1 of PP strategy) (Currently 10%) Whole school culture where children recognise reading as a key and integral skill which opens the door to their future; pupils to independently talk about this in Pupil Voice opportunities |
Embed a proactive attendance policy that engages with families and secures further improvements in attendance, reduced PA and SA. | For disadvantaged pupils’ attendance to be above the national special school average in Year 1 of PP strategy (currently persistent absenteeism is at 30% and severe absence at 4.8%) Regional Director reports to identify significant improvements in attendance in all year groups by Spring Term 2026 Regional Director reports to identify significant improvements in our support for children with significant attachment and trauma difficulties outlining how less learning is being disrupted due to these behaviours Pupils to be able to describe their learning in all curriculum areas in Pupil Voice surveys and discussions, including in the foundation subjects Parent survey to be completed by parent body in Year 1 of PP strategy and increased engagement in parent engagement in all workshops across Year 1 of PP strategy Continued improvement in the number of Level 1-4 behaviour incidences due to improved emotional regulation and embedded ‘Ways of Being’ values by summer 2026. |
To close the gap and reach the expected standards in maths | An increase in the numbers of disadvantaged pupils meeting expected Maths standard at the end of KS2 in Year 1 of PP strategy Support and bespoke training from trust Maths Director (Sarah Thornton) in specific small group tuition in maths https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/small-group-tuition Children to identify themselves as being mathematicians and see the purpose of learning Maths; captured in Pupil Voice surveys across the school |
To close the gap in cultural opportunities impacting on vocabulary, experience, confidence and future aspirations | Academic Calendar demonstrates increased opportunities including trips, visits, career experiences, cultural opportunities and displays populated with this information by summer 2026 with disadvantaged children using new vocabulary and memories to recall from these experiences - captured via pupil voice and parental feedback Full pupil parliament programme to be fully embedded with all pupils knowing which children lead on what and understand the positive impact that they make Pupil Parliament engages with other local Co-op Academies and local schools/ organisations. Writing opportunities with improved experiential vocabulary seen in children’s books Regional Director reports, Link Academy Community Council visits and Academic Reviewers highlight a school culture focused on giving disadvantaged children that ‘step up’ in life i.e. books marked first, student leaders representing disadvantaged community, high number attending clubs and enrichments Introduce a programme of career skills within PSHE programme impacting children feeling more confident to talk and take a risk and speak effectively Pupil Voice and book work captures our curriculum drive to address racism and sexism and sexual harassment, and promotes equal opportunities. Reports from the places our school visits to state how engaged our children are in their learning off-site by summer 2026. |
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 (for example, CPD, recruitment and retention)
Budgeted cost | £ 28706 |
Activity | Evidence that supports this approach | Challenge number(s) addressed |
Specialist MFL (Spanish) teacher employed for whole class work in KS2 £5040 | EEF identifies communication and language approaches that consistently show positive benefits for young children’s learning, including their spoken language skills, their expressive vocabulary and their early reading skills. On average, children who are involved in communication and language approaches make seven months’ additional progress over the course of a year. All children appear to benefit from such approaches, but some studies show slightly larger effects for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/evidence-reviews/foreign-language-learning | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
Cookery teacher, nutrition lessons in addition to the Design & Technology curriculum £7990 | Cooking is a valuable life skill which is often linked with improved diet quality, such as improving the uptake of fruit and vegetables and an increased recognition of healthier foods. In a UK survey of 2000 residents, ‘learn to cook’ was rated as the fifth most important life skill for modern living (the highest non-tech skill) following ‘searching the internet,’ ‘operating a mobile phone,’ ‘connecting WiFi’ and ‘mastering online banking,’, demonstrating public interest in learning cooking skills. Cooking skills have been increasingly used on their own and as part of other initiatives as a preventive measure to address diet-related diseases including obesity. In recent years there has been an increase in cooking skills and food skills interventions as a means to improve dietary outcomes. This research highlights the importance of learning cooking skills at an early age for skill retention, confidence, cooking practices, cooking attitude and diet quality. https://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12966-016-0446-y | 1, 8, 9 |
Specialist Outdoor Learning mentor employed with specialist skills in SEMH strategies (0.5 timetable) £13,436 | Specialist Outdoor Learning mentor employed with specialist skills in SEMH strategies £16,000 The focus with our outdoor learning interventions is not on the outdoor provision itself but the opportunity to model self-regulation and collaboration and to provide sensitive and difficult ‘feedback’ from a specialist SEMH mentor in a calming and engaging environment. The EEF outlines this type of verbal feedback has a high impact of 7months+. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/feedback | 1, 2, 8, 9 |
Curriculum development CPD for staff whilst observing high engagement activities with pupils where specialist teachers demonstrate Best Practice (SEND Director led sessions) Staffing costs to facilitate= £2240 | EEF identifies Behaviour Engagement strategies can have a moderate impact on learning, but more importantly outlines how necessary this if for broad and balanced learning to take place EEF looks at self-regulation through the development of executive function and reports this is consistently linked with successful learning, especially problem solving. Strategies that seek to improve learning by increasing self-regulation have an average impact of five additional months’ progress (EEF 2018) | 3, 4, 5, 6 |
Targeted academic support (for example, tutoring, one-to-one support structured interventions)
Budgeted cost | £ 30,680 |
Activity | Evidence that supports this approach | Challenge number(s) addressed |
NTS Assessments- SHINE interventions £2,372.80 | Robust baseline assessments, including those used for diagnostic purposes, can provide a useful picture of what a child knows or can do at a certain point in time, as well as gaps in their learning. This information should be used to inform subsequent teaching and learning activities. Without good baseline assessment – a strong starting point – it is impossible to measure progress well.’ Extract: Assessment and Monitoring Pupil Progress – EEF (Education Endowment Foundation) | |
Read Write Inc Phonics £1526.35 | Read Write Inc. Phonics and Fresh Start teach children to read and write through a systematic approach to literacy rooted in phonics. Read Write Inc. Phonics is for children in Reception – Year 4 (age 4 – 9) and begins with 20-minute daily lessons in term 1 of Reception, building up to an hour a day for children in Year 1 and above. Most children complete the programme by the first term of Year 2 while those in need of further support may continue until the end of Year 4. | |
2x LSAs (0.5) to deliver Read Write Inc Phonics and ‘Shine’ interventions= £26, 780.85 | The average impact of the deployment of teaching assistants is about an additional four months’ progress over the course of a year. However, effects tend to vary widely between those studies where teaching assistants are deployed in everyday classroom environments, which typically do not show a positive benefit, and those where teaching assistants deliver targeted interventions to individual pupils or small groups, which on average show moderate positive benefits. The headline figure of four additional months’ progress lies between these figures. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/teaching-assistant-interventions |
Wider strategies (for example, related to attendance, behaviour, wellbeing)
Budgeted cost | £ 13134 |
Activity | Evidence that supports this approach | Challenge number(s) addressed |
Sand Play Therapy- Brighter Days Ahead CIC £6480 | Sandplay therapy can reduce anxiety, withdrawal, and social behavioural problems in school‐age children with chronic diseases, as well as relieve anxiety and depression symptoms in their caregivers. Effects of sandplay therapy in reducing emotional and behavioural problems in school‐age children. The results showed that symbolic and imaginal expression, core mechanisms of SPT, are strongly influenced by the cultural context. This promotes the development of local symbolic systems and enhances SPT’s cross-cultural adaptability. Practically, SPT has been widely applied with children, adolescents, and adults, showing notable positive effects on trauma recovery, emotional regulation, and social adaptation. | 1, 3, 8, 9 |
Seedlings £4226 | Social and emotional learning (SEL) interventions seek to improve pupils’ decision-making skills, interaction with others and their self-management of emotions, rather than focusing directly on the academic or cognitive elements of learning. SEL interventions might focus on the ways in which students work with (and alongside) their peers, teachers, family or community. | 3, 7, 8, 9 |
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy £2,158.80 | Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a recommended treatment for many mental health problems, such as: depression, including social anxiety, phobias and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) eating disorders, including anorexia and bulimia, bipolar disorder personality disorders CBT can also help with other conditions including: sleep problems, such as insomnia, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) https://www.nhs.uk/tests-and-treatments/cognitive-behavioural-therapy-cbt/ | 3, 7, 8, 9 |
Lego Therapy Training £270 and staffing cost to deliver. | Play-based learning approaches have a moderate positive impact (+ four months) on learning outcomes. The evidence base for play-based learning is not strong or consistent, but does indicate a clear relationship between play and early learning outcomes. On average, the studies of play that measure impact found that play-based learning approaches improve learning outcomes by approximately four additional months. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/early-years/toolkit/play-based-learning | 1, 3, 8, 9 |
Total budgeted cost
Total budgeted cost | £ total sum of 3 amounts stated above |
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 2024 to 2025 academic year.
Pupil premium strategy outcomes | |
The academic year 2024/25 represented a crucial period of strategic development for the school, driven by a commitment to ensure all pupils, particularly those eligible for Pupil Premium funding, received the highest standard of support and opportunity. The Pupil Premium was strategically deployed to target key areas—intervention, support plans, and curriculum development—with a rigorous, evidence-based approach. Pupil Premium: Outcomes for 2024/25 1. Strengthening Intervention and Personalised Support Plans A core focus of the Pupil Premium strategy for 2024/25 was the development of robust, personalised support to remove barriers to learning and address social, emotional, and behavioural needs. Personalised Support Plans: The funding was instrumental in allowing the team to implement and monitor personalised support effectively. The school focused on providing personalised support through Pupil Support Plans and Personal Handling Plans. This included dedicated training for staff on effective reporting and half-termly monitoring of these plans by school leaders. The aim was to ensure that all staff can implement agreed actions on these plans and that there is comprehensive record keeping of pupils. Behaviour and Attendance Interventions: The Pupil Premium supported the overarching objective to ensure consistent strategies to improve pupils' behaviour and attendance were in place. A key initiative was the implementation of consistent behaviour expectations and consequences, which involved Staff Continuing Professional Development (CPD), staff consultation, and the roll-out of a new Behaviour Policy. The intended impact was a reduction in the number and length of physical interventions, an improvement in the quality of incident reporting, and the application of a consistent approach to consequence and reward by all staff. Impact Monitoring: To ensure accountability, the school committed to compiling Case Studies to highlight impact. This ensured that the impact of interventions on high-risk pupils was captured through regularly updated pupil incident logs and showed a measurable reduction in physical interventions and an improvement in attendance. Furthermore, a systematic procedure was developed for new pupil intake to ensure needs of pupils are assessed and understood prior to transfer. 2. Enhancing Curriculum Development through High-Quality Teaching While the SDP's primary focus was on behaviour and support, the Pupil Premium indirectly drove curriculum enhancement by prioritising high-quality teaching, recognised as the single greatest factor in closing the attainment gap. Consistent Expectations and CPD: The investment which included Staff CPD and Behaviour Monitoring and Modelling, directly elevated the quality of teaching and consistency in the classroom. By ensuring staff confidence and safety, and by developing a system of Natural and Logical Consequences, teachers were better equipped to deliver a challenging, stable curriculum to all pupils. The continuous improvement cycle was embedded through regular fidelity checks, such as Behaviour Learning Walks and a Staff Behaviour Quiz, ensuring the high-quality curriculum was delivered with consistency and precision across the school. The dedication and strategic planning demonstrated during the 2024/25 academic year were integral to the school's preparation for a significant milestone. The school formally transferred from Ernest Cookson School to Co-op Academy Rathbone on 1st July 2025. This transition marked the start of a new, long-term sustainable future for the academy, where the strong, evidence-based foundation laid by the 2024/25 Pupil Premium strategy will continue to drive inclusion, high aspirations, and academic success for all its pupils. |
Pupil Premium Strategy Statement |