Statutory Information

The Secretary of State for Education has, from September 2012, instructed all schools to display certain items of information on their websites. Some of this information is duplicated in other areas of this website, but in summary, the information required is shown below.

Remote / Online Learning

This section is for information and is updated from time to time if new information becomes available.

In the event of a full or partial closure, the school is committed to providing continuity of education to its students and will do so through a process of remote (online) learning.

THS Remote Learning Policy

All remote learning provision, including homework, will be provided via the Microsoft Teams platform.

Please click here for full guidance regarding Microsoft Teams. MS Teams will enable us to streamline all aspects of school provision through one, central online platform ensuring that expectations are clear for staff, parents and students.

We will use MS Teams to share resources and, where necessary, direct students to other relevant platforms. The school would like to thank parents and carers for the tremendous support and understanding you have shown us, and the way in which you have embraced this new way of working.

Access to all the key IT services offered by the school can be found by visiting the IT Services pages on this website. These include:

• Microsoft Teams
• Remote Desktops
• Email
• School portal
• Next Cloud

For help with using any of these services, please visit the relevant help pages linked on the services page.

Students Self Isolating

Students who are required to self-isolate will access the school curriculum via Microsoft Teams. Self –isolating students will have full access to their teachers via Teams. Teaching staff will upload assignments to ensure these students have:

• Meaningful and ambitious work each day in a number of different subjects.
• Access to a well-sequenced curriculum so that knowledge and skills are built incrementally, with a good level of clarity about what is intended to be taught and practiced in each subject.
• Frequent and clear explanations of new content, delivered by a teacher in the school or through high quality curriculum resources.
• A programme that is of equivalent length to the core teaching pupils would receive in school.

Please click here for online learning protocols and expectations

Careers programme

Details concerning our careers programme are available on our Futures page.

Pupil Premium

Barriers for disadvantaged students

Although we continue to support all our pupil premium students it is the disadvantaged students who attract the most funding and we have increased our focus on this section of the school community.

In looking at data in the Thomas Hardye School the main barrier to disadvantaged students is attendance. To this end the attendance of disadvantaged students is carefully tracked, and parents are contacted immediately to find out reasons for absence. Where absence is persistent or becomes long term the guidance leaders, college teams and where appropriate outside agencies work on getting students back into school. There is also an attendance panel that has the ability to fine parents who are not supporting their child’s attendance at school.

The support for curriculum access is in place as prior to this funding we found that students were not able to engage with all subjects effectively, and their expectations of what could be achieved in areas such as coursework and controlled assessment was limited.

A significant number of disadvantaged students have a background of complex issues from outside of school, including mental health issues. The guidance team provides support to ensure that these students can engage with school without these issues affecting their performance. The team has a background that includes social work, the police and youth work. This team have the time to liaise with outside agencies without the pressure of a teaching timetable.

During the lockdown the lack of ICT facilities was another potential barrier. To this end the school distributed 80 refurbished laptops to families who requested them, and in two cases supported the setting up of internet provision. This was done in addition to the government’s scheme.

Pupil Premium Strategy

Our work with pupil premium students is assessed each time a set of data is collected for a year group, with an overall assessment of progress each term. The progress of pupil premium, and particularly disadvantaged students, is a focus in the Headteacher’s meetings with Subject leaders in September and January.

During lockdown an extended management team met each week and the first item on the agenda was vulnerable children. They were being monitored and contacted regularly, and the meeting then went on to consider the progress of disadvantaged students. Interventions were much more difficult due to the circumstances of lockdown, but the school remained open to vulnerable students throughout, including holidays.

We have looked carefully at the evidence and research about the most effective ways to use the Pupil Premium funding, as well as evaluating the impact of Pupil Premium work in the Thomas Hardye School. We are aiming to eliminate the variation in performance between pupil premium and non pupil premium examination performance, as well as ensuring that all students have equal access to educational opportunities.

Since the return from lockdown a particular emphasis has been placed on supporting the mental health of disadvantaged students and trying to ensure that attendance is as high as possible, although these factors continue to be affected by the pandemic.

Currently the funding is being spent on the following:

• The school is organised to ensure that Pupil Premium students can be carefully monitored within their college. Each college has a Guidance Leader and Deputy College Leader who have a particular responsibility for the progress and welfare of Pupil Premium students.
• Monitoring of pupil premium students through the pandemic.
• 1:1 and small group tuition in Maths, English, and other subjects as appropriate.
• Small GCSE groups in history and geography.
• Broadening the curriculum on offer so that it is as inclusive as possible, including a digital literacy option including the ECDL.
• Increased coordination between E4E and the guidance leaders, with E4E providing new opportunities such as DofE for their students.
• Offering supported access to DofE through the colleges.
• A subsidised breakfast club to encourage the best start to the day.
• Raising student aspirations and making students aware of future opportunities including apprenticeships, high performing universities, and high level apprenticeships.
• All year 10 Pupil Premium students have a practice interview with a member of the local business community.
• Homework clubs where Pupil Premium students also have access to ICT resources.
• Improved data and tracking systems, including specialist work by the school’s data manager.
• Enabling Pupil Premium students to participate in the full range of extra-curricular activities (both in and out of school) and to take part in the school visits both in the UK and abroad that support their learning and engagement. Extra-curricular provision has been severely impacted by the pandemic
• Materials and equipment for individual students including a comprehensive range of revision guides and other aids to study.
• Support for exam revision.
• Improved monitoring of attendance through the schools attendance officers, and support for attendance issues.
• In school support and counselling to help students with emotional and well-being issues.
• Extra ICT resources, including iPads have been purchased for the use of Pupil Premium students.
• Guest speakers to raise aspirations and enhance the curriculum.
• Practical projects.
• Cashless catering has been introduced to improve the experience of FSM pupils.
• Music tuition.
• New ICT resources have been brought in for exams, also linked to E4E, such as Dragon and Read, Write, Gold.
• Extra support has been given to students by deputy college leaders on the morning of exams to ensure they are prepared.
• E4E run a summer transition programme for students to help them make the step up from middle school.

The pupil premium strategy will be reviewed in July 2021

Monitoring and Impact

Every student eligible for Pupil Premium is individually monitored by their Deputy College Leader and detailed records are kept of all interventions and support, academic progress, attendance, participation and well-being through the SIMS system.

When data is collected about the progress of students, pupil premium progress is also identified as a category.

Progress 2019-20

In the last set of exams disadvantaged students in the Thomas Hardye School continued to make better progress than this group of students nationally. Their progress is broadly in line with non-disadvantaged students nationally. This years results did not include formal exams due to the pandemic and the data is as accurate as it can be in the circumstances.

• The progress 8 score for disadvantaged students was 0.64 compared with 0.06 last year. This means that disadvantaged students in the school made more progress on average than students in all schools. The gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students for overall progress 8 was 0.30 compared to 0.31 last year.
• The progress 8 score for disadvantaged students in the English element was 0.55 compared with 0.28 last year. The gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students for progress in English was 0.29 compared with 0.23 last year.
• The progress 8 score for disadvantaged students in the Maths element was 0.42 compared with 0.06 last year. The gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students for progress in Maths was 0.44 compared with 0.38 last year.
• The progress 8 score for disadvantaged students in the Ebac element was 0.74 compared with 0.07 last year. The gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students for progress in the Ebac was 0.15 compared with 0.3 last year.
• The progress 8 score for disadvantaged students in the open element was 0.75 compared with 0.02 last year. The gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students for progress in the open element was 0.35 compared with 0.3 last year.

Pupil Premium Budget 2019-20

For further policies, see our policies page