Are you using additional funding pots?

It’s that time of year when budgets are being rubber-stamped and use of school funding becomes a hot topic. It is especially important for schools to be transparent these days with the statutory requirements that expect you to publish your allocations, expenditure and impact of additional pots of money on your websites.

With increasing funds being given to schools, we take a look at how you can showcase that you are using these pots of money wisely through your website and provide some helpful resources as food for thought.

PE and Sports Funding

Sport and physical exercise are a big deal with Ofsted, who routinely check the details of PE and sports provision on a school website before an inspection. In the main, they look at two areas:

How effectively the school uses the Primary school PE and Sport Premium to improve the quality and breadth of PE and sport provision.

How well the school is increasing participation in PE and sport, so all pupils develop healthy lifestyles and reach the performance levels they are capable of.

To get you up to speed, we recommend:

You make your PE and Sports Funding information easy to read and easy to find on your school website.

You have the full wording of your action plan and impact statement on a webpage for quick and easy reading. And for the translator to translate.

You make this document available to download and print off.

You use the full report name for a document link rather than ‘click here’ so it shows up better in a search engine.

It isn’t simply the document itself that’s important, of course. It’s also a good idea to highlight the range of activities and clubs available to pupils, as well as showcasing the school’s ethos and attitude towards sport, physical exercise and healthy living more generally.

Producing regular news articles and posting on your social media accounts can help. This promotes the importance of physical health to your school community and encourages participation. Advertising event details well in advance on your calendar gives parents and staff a chance to plan ahead and get involved. Most importantly, make sure you are championing every highlight, every sporting success and every new initiative to the max!

Reach out…

Don’t just concentrate on your website and social media accounts, but certainly use them to tell your story. Build your reputation for promoting healthy and sporting lifestyles in the local community through exposure in newspapers and on third party websites.

Ask pupils to write match or competition reports – it’s not only hugely inspiring for them but a great way to demonstrate positive attitudes about sport and P.E to Ofsted.

Pupil Premium Reports

Schools are now very familiar with writing Pupil Premium reports, but just in case you want a bit of help or a fresh approach here’s a link to help you with this:

Effective Pupil Premium Reviews

Early Years Pupil Premium

The Early Years Pupil Premium is about to come into place for those of you with children age 3-4 years in your school or nursery. This will most likely be added to the list of statutory items required on your websites in the near future so why not get ahead of the game and create an EYPP area on your website if it applies to you? You could include a summary of what the funding is, where it comes from, when it will become available to you and how you’re going to use it.

Here are a couple of links for information on the EYPP to get you started:

Eligibility Checker

Pupil Premium Guide

Year 7 Literacy and Numeracy Catch-up premium funding

Clearly explaining how your school spends this funding and the impact on pupil’s attainment is a must. Your re-potting on your website should clearly identify: