COVID Catch Up Premium
All maintained primary, middle, secondary and all through schools will receive £80 for each pupil aged 4 and over recorded in Reception to Year Group 11 in the October 2019 school census.
Cheshire West and Chester Remit
Permitted use of catch-up premium funds by maintained schools
Local authorities must ensure that their maintained schools only spend catch-up premium funds in the following ways:
- for the purposes of the school; or
- for the benefit of pupils registered at other maintained schools, special schools, pupil referral units or hospital schools
Catch-up premium funds do not have to be spent by maintained schools, special schools pupil referral units or hospital schools, in the financial year beginning 1 April 2020.
Maintained schools, special schools, pupil referral units and hospital schools may carry some or all catch-up premium funds forward to future financial years.
How Schools Should Use their funds
Schools should use this funding for specific activities to support their pupils to catch up for lost teaching over the previous months, in line with the guidance on curriculum expectations for the next academic year.
Schools have the flexibility to spend their funding in the best way for their cohort and circumstances. To support schools to make the best use of this funding, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has published a coronavirus (COVID-19) support guide for schools with evidence-based approaches to catch up for all students. Schools should use this document to help them direct their additional funding in the most effective way. This could include, for example:
- small group or one-to-one tuition (particularly through the National Tutoring Programme)
- summer programmes to help re-engage pupils or extra teaching capacity from September
Guidance to support the use of tuition will be published as part of wider National Tutoring Programme communications later in the summer.
To support schools to implement their catch-up plans effectively, EEF has published the school planning guide: 2020 to 2021. This will provide further guidance on how schools should implement catch-up strategies when they return in September and supporting case studies to highlight effective practice.