Pupil Premium and a poverty strategy.

There is a wealth of census data available to give a socio-economic picture of your catchment area. There are parents willing to share their stories. How well do all your staff understand the context of your pupils and the stressors of living in poverty? Analysis of the socio-economic data from your catchment area can help your team make leadership decisions based on aspects like parents access to transport, unemployment rates or local crime statistics. Do you know which postcode your neediest pupils live in? Have you linked that with attendance or exclusion rates?

We can prepare a socio-economic profile for your catchment area to help you understand your pupils better. It comes with key questions to promote leadership reflection.

We can also provide a CPD session for all staff to help them understand what life is really like for a child growing up in poverty.

Research around poverty suggests the stressors that involved can affect the way a young person’s brain is wired. It also increases safeguarding risks and makes young people more vulnerable to behavioural or mental health problems. Is your team well resourced? Is it proactive? Do all staff understand the local risks and is a response to these built into your approach? How inclusive is your behaviour approach? Do you seek to understand behaviour and increase the security and safety of young people in your school community?

We support schools to structure processes to become more proactive in reducing risks for students. We review and improve safeguarding systems and we train and equip staff to promote relational and non-confrontational behaviour management.

In every area there are charities, faith groups and local organisations who are working to support families and are experts in the issues they face. Develop local links with those working in areas like food poverty, housing, or domestic abuse, and forge networks with referral pathways ready for whenever you come across a family that needs support.

We help schools by offering research into potential local partnerships and share expertise in brokering arrangements for local support.

Childhood trauma and ACE’s are increased in children growing up in deprived areas. An understanding of the behaviours caused by a trauma response and a knowledge of how to respond can be revolutionary for teachers and pastoral staff. Do all your staff know the importance of encouraging a sense of safety and positive relationships? Do all your staff know how to recognise and respond to a trauma reaction?

We deliver packages of training to frontline school staff. What is trauma-informed practice? How do we recognise a trauma response and how can we respond to pupils who struggle with this?

There are lots of materials available around supporting schools to poverty proof their school year. Has your leadership team worked through these? Have you assessed the cost to parents across the school calendar? Have you looked at adapting your approach to make things more affordable and easier to access for those in poverty?

We offer support to take school leaderships through a poverty proofing process, reducing the barriers to a successful school experience.

Pupils growing up in a deprivation and poverty lack the experiences and cultural capital of their more affl uent peers. How has your curriculum been adapted to this? Do all curriculum leaders understand the context and concepts behind this? Are there opportunities for all pupils to access an enriched curriculum and extra experiences that increase their aspirations and cultural capital?

We review the school offer and share our expertise in what makes good practice to develop cultural capital for your pupils.

Deprived students are overrepresented in both persistent absence and exclusions. How does your approach work to reduce these? Do staff work with families to reduce barriers to attendance? Does your use of inclusion services, alternative provision, and pastoral support work to support students in danger of exclusion and struggling with mainstream school?

We work with schools and trusts to reduce exclusions. We train and equip staff to set up successful internal provisions. We help support schools with inclusive attendance analysis and strategy.

If you want us to come in and simply review your practice - we won’t do it! At Close the Gaps we never run isolated reviews or audits. We like to support change so they are always followed by sharing good practice, action planning and ongoing support.