INTENT

Our agreed essential areas that we want our pupils to develop are LITERACY, MATHS AND SOCIAL SKILLS. We know that the majority of our pupils come to us with significant gaps in these areas due to previous social and schooling issues.

More and more of our pupils have been accessing interventions which has a large role in individualising their access to the curriculum, but we wanted to be able to have even more children benefit from an intervention approach.

Through the implantation of essentials in the classroom, we are able to individualise learning in these areas even more so by breaking off into small groups to focus on ‘the essentials.’

By dedicating more time in the timetable to essentials (190 minutes a week) pupils should be able to fill gaps in these areas, have less time between lessons to begin to understand concepts and get those light bulb moments more frequently. Overtime, this approach will deepen understanding across the curriculum.

IMPLEMENTATION

9:20 -9:40 every morning is dedicated to the delivery of essentials as well as 13:00-13:30 Monday to Wednesday afternoon.

Each class team of 2 has an additional member of staff allocated during these times so that there are 3 adults to each class.

Classes are split into groups of 3 and work on literacy, math’s, or social skills during this time.

The additional adult may be needed to intervene and take a child for a movement break or some additional nurturing input, so each class should have 2 adult led groups and 1 independently working group.

Teachers plan for the delivery of each session and are responsible for making sure that each child is accessing the area that is most pertinent to them.

PRE- AND POST-TEACHING IN MATH’S AND LITERACY

Teachers can pre teach a concept that they will be covering in a later lesson to an individual or group of children who they know will struggle or who they may want to stretch prior to the lesson.

Similarly, post lunch they can pick up with any pupils who may have struggled in the lesson. The idea here is to close the gap and revisit ideas before the new information is lost or misinterpreted. This is also fundamental to supporting depth of learning.

IMPACT

Individualising learning and being able to offer more 1:1 for pupils who need it in math’s and literacy.

More rapid and sustained progress in reading and phonics

Pupils beginning to develop more self-confidence in lessons but also in themselves

Better friendship skills and overall social skills

Greater progress and depth of learning in math’s and literacy and the wider curriculum.

Pupils make progress in math’s/literacy and social skills in line with those peers who previously accessed those types of interventions.