Springwell School

Covid-19 (Updated September 2022)

Current guidance is that schools manage COVID cases using the usual absence procedures. 
We have left access to the learning hub (see tab below) as you may find helpful resources to support your child at home.

Remote Learning Hub 

Covid-19 (previous guidance)

Springwell School continues to follow the current advice and guidance from Government and Public Health England.  Our primary priorities are to ensure 

  • We minimise the risk of transmission 
  • The children, staff, parents and our community are safe 
  • We minimise any disruption to teaching and learning 
  • We maintain a flexible approach that will enable us to act swiftly to any changes to Government or Public Health England guidance. 

We constantly review and update our Covid-19 Risk Assessment and we currently have the following measures in place; 

  • Staff continue to wear masks when transitioning and in corridors.  Masks are not required in classrooms 
  • Teaching of good hand hygiene 
  • Keep the school as well ventilated as we can 
  • Enhanced cleaning of high traffic areas, such as toilets, door handles etc 
  • Hand sanitiser dispensers around school and in each room, for staff use 
  • Twice weekly LFD testing for staff 
  • Twice weekly Saliva testing for staff and pupils 
  • Temperature checking for all visitors 

All measures we have in place will be monitored in light of national and local numbers and numbers of cases within school.  Measures will be increased or decreased as necessary and parents and other stakeholders will be informed of changes as necessary, via our Parent Mail system. 

Catch Up Premium

The Government has allocated funding to each school to support “Catch-up.”

The DfE guidance states:

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.

How we are using the Catch Up Premium

At Springwell, we have decided to focus our spend on communication (including phonics), health and well-being. These have been identified as areas that many of our pupils have lost learning within during the Lockdowns. All three areas formed the focus for our recovery curriculum and IEPS during 20-21. In order to target the pupils who need to ‘catch up’ the most, a number of methods have been used. These include:

  • Identifying pupils and groups of pupils through soft and hard data (e.g. termly IEP outcomes, teacher recommendations, communication profiles)
  • Therapies or targeted support for individual pupils and small groups (e.g. Play Therapy, SaLT, EP support)
  • Programme specific training for SSAs and teachers to support our pupils to achieve more in the key areas (e.g. PECS, Makaton, Getting Started)
  • Resourcing key areas to supplement training (e.g. PECS, Spring into Phonics, Chillwell)

Below details the additional provision we will be putting in place, which will be funded by our “Catch-up Premium.”

1) Targeted approach

For identified pupils and groups

  • Speech and language therapy
  • Y1 catch up programme
  • EYFS catch up programme
  • RWI targeted support
  • EP support for identified pupils

2) Teaching

Wider professional development to impact on teaching and learning: 

  • PECS training for teachers
  • Makaton training for SSAs
  • Attention autism for teachers and SSAs
  • Plus resources to support training needs

3) Wider strategies: to be identified

  • Emotional and developmental play support for targeted pupils using Play Therapy
  • Creating a 'Feeding Team' for pupils with food related difficulties including advice for class teams and parents 
  • Purchasing bicycles that are suitable for our older pupils to use to help increase levels of movement

How will impact be assessed?

Each individual part of the Catch Up Fund will be assessed in a method suitable for that area. This can take the form of data at the start and end of an intervention, individual reports / case studies, IEP achievement data, staff evaluations etc. Regular Catch Up Fund progress meetings take place half termly between the Catch Up Fund Lead and Co-Headteachers to continually assess the success of each area and plan next steps.