Supporting vulnerable pupils
Knighton Mead Primary Academy sees children heavily impacted by county lines, despite being a primary school.
They also have many children with other specific vulnerabilities, such as children who are in the care of the local authority or who are known to children’s services.
Their trust has a vulnerability index in place in order to help the school support their children. This enables them to target interventions to meet children’s specific needs. They also use their pupil premium funding to provide trauma-informed training for staff members.
"There’s one child in particular that really stands out when we speak about success. They’re a looked-after child and unfortunately experienced lots of domestic abuse and substance abuse in their younger years. In Years 2 and 3, they were so far behind in their learning because of those things — and behind their peers in terms of emotional maturity too.
"In addition to having some brilliant carers and a nurturing family environment, because of their pupil premium and the extra funding they get, we’ve been able to give them a tutor twice a week who they read with in the mornings. And we’ve been able to make sure they can access everything all the other children access. We’ve been able to give them some really focused interventions with key members of staff and they accessed the play therapy for two years on and off.
"With all of those interventions, we’ve really seen the impact. Not just on the child’s learning progress but their maturity, their positivity now — considering emotionally they were very negative, so there’s a lot of success. They’re now in Year 6 and they’re age-related across the board, possibly going to be graded above average in a couple of subjects as well. So the progress they’ve made from a really rocky start has been huge."
– Rebecca Smith, Principal, Knighton Mead Primary Academy, Leicester
Impact
The school has seen huge changes in children who have been given one-to-one support, not only in terms of their academic achievement but also in terms of their emotional, social and mental wellbeing.
This is reflected by their overall and persistent absence rates, which are both lower than the local and national averages. However, with tightening budgets, providing this level of support is becoming increasingly challenging. The school recently had to lose their full-time attendance officer and may discontinue play therapy due to budget constraints. Schools need sufficient funding to be able to provide the required support for all their pupils.
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