Saturday Boosters and Primary Saturday Offer
Supporting Achievement and Strengthening Community
At The Prescot School, we are committed to helping every student achieve their full potential. Our Saturday programmes are an important part of this, providing additional support for Year 11 students as they prepare for their exams, as well as helping younger pupils feel confident about their move to secondary school.
Year 11 Saturday Boosters
Every Saturday from 10am to 1pm, we offer extra support sessions across a wide range of GCSE and vocational subjects. These sessions are carefully planned by our teachers to meet the specific needs of each student, based on their recent assessments and classwork.
This means that students receive focused, personalised support, helping them strengthen key skills, address any gaps in their learning, and feel more confident in the lead-up to their final exams.
Last year, over 60% of Year 11 students attended these sessions regularly, including many disadvantaged pupils. This strong level of engagement contributed to improved
outcomes across the school, highlighting the value of this additional support.
Students benefit from working in smaller groups, where teachers can provide more individual attention. The sessions are closely linked to what students are learning in lessons, ensuring the support is relevant, targeted, and effective.
This academic year, our Saturday Boosters have been running weekly since October. Following feedback from students and parents, we have made improvements to make the sessions even more accessible and engaging. As a result, attendance has been even higher than at the same point last year.
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Previous Information
Year 11 Targeted Saturday Boosters
Every Saturday between 10am and 1pm, a wide range of subjects across GCSE and vocational courses deliver targeted booster sessions for our Year 11 students. Staff design bespoke interventions informed by Question Level Analyses from mock exams, insights from classroom assessment and teaching, and exam board guidance. These sessions allow teachers to focus precisely on the gaps, misconceptions, and priority skills students need to strengthen in preparation for their final examinations.
Last year, more than 60% of the cohort attended these sessions regularly, with 49 % of attendees being disadvantaged students. This strong level of engagement was one of several contributing factors to the significant improvement in whole-school outcomes.Research from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) supports the impact of targeted, small-group teaching. Evidence shows that small group tuition can add an average of four months of additional progress when it is closely matched to pupils’ needs and informed by diagnostic assessment. The EEF also highlights that tutoring and targeted
academic classroom teaching, with small group and one-to-one tuition offering between four and five months of additional progress. Providing additional structured learning time, such as weekend academic sessions, is also associated with improved attainment, with extended learning time approaches showing an average impact of three months' additional progress for students on academic measures.
This academic year, Saturday Boosters have run weekly since October. Following feedback from students and parents, the programme was refined to further improve accessibility and engagement, resulting in attendance significantly higher than the same point last year.
Updated attendance: This academic year, attendance has increased even further. We now regularly have over 70 students attending each week, representing over 70% of the Year 11 cohort. This reflects growing confidence in the programme from students and families.
Primary Arts and PE Saturday Offer
Alongside our Year 11 Boosters, we offer an Arts and PE programme every Saturday morning for pupils from our primary feeder schools. Attendance continues to grow, and families have responded positively to the opportunity for children to develop confidence and familiarity ahead of joining The Prescot School in Year 7.
These sessions provide high‑quality creative and physical activities led by our specialist staff. Importantly, they allow primary pupils to become comfortable in the school environment, meet staff, and experience elements of our curriculum and extra‑curricular offer.
In partnership with our feeder primaries, we identify pupils who would benefit most from early support, ensuring they are well‑prepared for the transition to secondary school. The EEF notes that early interventions and targeted support can help narrow attainment gaps and improve outcomes for disadvantaged pupils, particularly when informed by evidence and aligned with the wider curriculum.
By strengthening relationships between school and home before pupils officially join us, our Saturday Primary Offer builds confidence, supports smooth transition, and fosters a sense of belonging from the very start.
Assessment at The Prescot School: High-Quality, Research-Informed Practice Driving Strong Outcomes
At The Prescot School, our assessment strategy has been revitalised and relaunched as Assessment for Learning (AFL). This ensures that assessment is woven into everyday classroom practice and aligned with our Adaptive Teaching strategies. Our approach recognises that assessment is not an event but an ongoing process: a continuous cycle of checking understanding, responding to need, and using feedback to move learning forward.
Although these changes are at an early stage of implementation, we are already seeing a significant shift in how assessment is being used to inform teaching and improve outcomes.
Low-Stakes Formative Assessment Embedded Across the Curriculum
Every curriculum area now implements regular, low-stakes formative assessments to check whether key knowledge and skills have landed with students. These include hinge questions, mini-quizzes, and in-class checks for understanding that enable teachers to respond promptly, address misconceptions, and adapt teaching in real time.
Research strongly supports this approach. The Education Endowment Foundation reports that embedding formative assessment strategies leads to consistently improved outcomes, with schools implementing whole-school formative assessment programmes seeing the equivalent of two months' additional progress at GCSE level. Large-scale evidence also shows that responsive use of assessment to guide teaching
can raise attainment across subjects and help narrow the gap between high and low prior-attaining pupils.
Bespoke Summative Assessment, Designed by Subject Experts
Summative assessments have been redesigned to align closely with each curriculum’s sequence of learning. Curriculum Leads have played a central role in this process, ensuring assessments are bespoke, purposeful, and valid for their subjects. These assessments provide accurate information about student understanding, allowing leaders and teachers to identify strengths, pinpoint gaps, and plan next steps.
EEF guidance emphasises that summative assessments are most effective when they are tightly aligned to curriculum content and used alongside formative evidence to form a full picture of student learning. Our revised assessment model ensures exactly this: reliable data, matched to taught content, used to inform teaching and intervention.
A Robust Tracking System That Supports Progress for All Students
Our tracking of formative and summative assessment is now stronger and more responsive than ever. Each subject area uses assessment tools that are accessible for all students, while still offering the right level of challenge. This supports early identification of misconceptions and ensures that interventions both in class and beyond are precisely targeted.
EEF evidence highlights the value of diagnostic assessments in identifying misconceptions, prior learning needs, and required levels of challenge, enabling teachers to adjust instruction effectively. Our tracking system incorporates this principle, ensuring every assessment serves a clear purpose.
Adaptive Teaching: Assessment at the Heart of Responsive Instruction
Our AFL strategy directly supports The Prescot School Adaptive Teaching Model. Teachers use ongoing assessment to make real-time adaptations, ensuring all pupils including those with SEND or lower prior attainment access ambitious learning. This aligns with national evidence indicating that adaptive teaching, informed by continuous assessment, leads to better outcomes and more inclusive classroom practice.
In the Day Interventions Enhancing the Curriculum Offer
We have invested in a range of in day interventions to enhance the curriculum and provide targeted support. These include specialist provision and small group sessions delivered by subject specialists in English, maths and science. These interventions ensure students receive high quality support during their school day, directly linked to classroom learning.
Adaptive Teaching: Assessment at the Heart of Responsive Instruction
Our AFL strategy directly supports The Prescot School Adaptive Teaching Model. Teachers use ongoing assessment to make real time adaptations, ensuring all pupils, including those with SEND or lower prior attainment, access ambitious learning.
High-Impact Feedback That Closes the Loop
As part of our assessment redesign, we have overhauled how feedback is delivered across the school. Feedback now explicitly “closes the loop,” ensuring students act on it and make visible improvements. Whether through whole-class feedback, verbal guidance, green-pen actions, or structured redrafting, our approach ensures that students know their next steps and can move to the next stage of learning.
EEF evidence shows that high-quality feedback is one of the most impactful strategies in education, with an average of six months’ additional progress when implemented effectively. The emphasis on actionable, timely feedback is further supported by research highlighting that feedback only improves learning when students use it to make improvements.
Sustained CPD Ensuring Consistency and Excellence
To embed this whole-school approach, ongoing professional development has supported staff in delivering high-quality AFL. Regular CPD focuses on formative assessment, responsive teaching, adaptive practice, and effective feedback strategies, ensuring consistent implementation across all departments.
EEF’s guidance on professional development stresses the importance of sustained training aligned with whole-school priorities, as part of effective implementation and long-term school improvement.
Academic Improvement at The Prescot School
This year marks the strongest academic performance in The Prescot School’s recent history. Our students achieved significant improvements across a range of key measures, reflecting their hard work, the dedication of our staff and the impact of our whole-school approach to teaching, learning and targeted intervention.
Headline Successes
- Strongest overall performance to date across GCSE and vocational outcomes.
- Attainment 8 improved for the entire cohort, including substantial gains for Disadvantaged and SEND students.
- Basics measures improved at both 4+ and 5+.
- Basics 4+ for disadvantaged students increased by over 20%, and Basics 5+ rose by over 10% – a transformational shift for our most vulnerable learners.
What Drove These Improvements
Our success has been the result of a coherent, whole-school strategy built around high-quality teaching and timely intervention. Key contributing elements included:
- Improved culture, including significant improvements in behaviour through overcommunicated, consistently applied routines. Classrooms are calm, expectations are clear and students experience a positive, purposeful environment.
- Enhanced teaching and learning, with investment in deliberate practice, Friday CPD and strengthened coaching through our lead coaches.
- Improved attendance, supported by the wider culture shift. Students are happier to attend because they know they are receiving a good deal, the sum of all parts working together.
- Saturday Boosters, providing targeted support informed by student needs.
- Form time English, maths, science and reading interventions, strengthening core knowledge and closing gaps.
- Effective use of formative and summative data, allowing staff to plan precisely, intervene early and tailor support.
Refining Our Approach for the Current Cohort
We have taken time to reflect on what worked particularly well last year. Using staff, student and leadership feedback, we have refined our strategies to ensure they are even better suited to the needs of this year's cohort. This includes sharper use of assessment information, more personalised intervention approaches and continued investment in staff development to sustain high-quality classroom practice.
