Recruit Recover Raise Standards Welsh Government Grant
This funding is to augment support offered under the Recruit Recover Raise Standards (3RS) programme and is provided specifically to support learners in years up to and including year 10. It is provided to local authorities and schools for the following purposes:
Purpose 1:
- To augment the Recruit Recover Raise Standards funding where their staffing complement costs more than their current grant;
- To meet additional resource costs faced by schools in enhancing their provision to address the impacts of COVID19; and
- To meet new resource costs encountered in preparing for the requirements of the new curriculum.
Purpose 2:
- Funding for local authorities to provide to funded non-maintained nursery settings with additional support to respond to the needs of younger learners. The use of this funding is aligned to Purpose 1 and can be applied to augment staffing costs; enhancing provision to address the impacts of COVID-19 and to prepare for the requirements of the new curriculum for funded non-maintained settings.
What the Funding Should be Used to Provide:
This grant dedicates financial resources to support additional capacity in the education system to support learners in years up to and including year 10. The funding is provided to enable schools and local authorities to target the areas outlined as follows:
- the funding can be used to augment the Recruit Recover Raise Standards funding to offset any costs above the initial funding value that schools have incurred when increasing their capacity to support learners.
- schools can offset additional costs that they have already met in addressing the impact of the COVID 19 crisis. These are explicitly costs not already covered or claimed by other grant funding sources, including, for example, digital support and the Hardship fund.
- new costs encountered in preparing for the requirements of the new curriculum prior to the end of the current financial year.
Schools can determine how to allocate funding in each of the areas above. There is no formula or set ratio for the allocation, and no requirement to allocate funding to each area if costs have not been incurred in that area.
The funding is eligible to be used for the purchase of consumables and the provision of online support services such as tutoring, subscriptions to online services and/or provision of materials (online or hard copy) for students.
In utilising the funding, schools should be aware of guidance relating to other grant funding streams such as the Hardship Fund. Where funding can be claimed against the Hardship Fund it should be and this additional funding should not be used to displace such claims.
LPS Plan:
- Provide additional staffing to support the development needs of learners.
- Provision of training to practitioners to improve the quality of support for learners.
- Provision of support services and resources to develop quality provision that will improve the engagement of young children in their early education and which will support future learning.
- The funding will focus on practitioner support and resources in key developmental areas which support the Foundation Phase pedagogical approach:
- Emotional Needs: Relationships are key for early years, having opportunities for meaningful, quality interactions is essential to learners. Placing an emphasis on building positive relationships to support communication and social skills. To do this it is essential that practitioners have the time and capacity to meet individual development needs.
- Physical Needs: Young children need to develop gross and fine motor skills and core stability to support physical development, cognition, flexibility, coordination and dexterity. These skills are developed through play based experiential learning. Adults should have a strong understanding of child development to ensure these developmental stages are not misguidedly rushed through. The benefits of outdoor learning cannot be underestimated to support these developmental needs.
- Learning Needs: Children need time to develop good speaking and listening skills. Language development should be a high priority with an emphasis placed on oracy. Early years practitioners must avoid jumping to ‘catch-up’ interventions because they feel obliged to show evidence of expected outcomes.
- Other areas of focus will be:
- Upskilling Practitioners: developing speech and language approaches, enabling settings to develop their own capacity to help ensure sustainability and reduce the need for specialist intervention.
- Supporting Activities: some training has accompanying activities or items for use with children after the training to maintain effective practice with learners.
- Online and Physical Resources: to support the key developmental areas identified above.
LPS Grant Allocation = £13,321.24
Expenditure:
£11,500 = Staffing
£2000 = Staff skill-set development to reflect the needs of learners
£1000 = Online subscriptions, learning support apps (Maths Seeds, etc) and physical resources
LPS Additional Expenditure = £1178