Most of the new Covid education recovery cash earmarked specifically for catch-up tutoring today will go directly toschools to employ their own staff, new plans reveal.
However the funding is time-limited, with schools expected to pay a quarter of the costs oftheir“local tutoring provision”from the start in 2021/22 and meet the “majority of costs” within three years.
The school-led catch-up sessionsform part of the government’s new £1.4 billion planfor Covid recovery, announced today, with £1 billion dedicated to launchinga “national tutoring revolution”.
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The £1 billion fund, which covers a three-year period, will provide100 million tutoring hours for pupils across England, the Department for Educationsaid.
The cashwill partly be used to fund an extension of the flagship National Tutoring Programme (NTP), with £218 million pledged in addition tothe £215 million already earmarked for thescheme inthe 2021-22 academic year.
But a large majority of new tutoring money aimed at pupils aged 5-16will go to schools themselves, who will have flexibility to hire new or existing staff to deliver the catch-up sessions.
The DfEsaid a total of£579 million wouldfund schools to “develop local tutoring provision”, which will“complement the NTP offer”.
Tutorswill be “directly employed” by schools, whichwill receive funding based on their pupil premium allocations.
The DfE said the requirement for schools to end up meeting the “majority of costs” for the tutors would “help ensure that tutoring is increasingly embedded as an effective tool for schools to use to help their pupils who are falling behind”.
The news comes after the government’s education recovery commissionerSir Kevan Collins said in April thathe wantedto introduce a “third way into tutoring”, whereby schools would identify who they preferred to deliver the support.
However despite the plans aligning with his vision for tutoring, they did not include his hoped-for longer school day and Sir Kevansaid today that “more will be needed to meet the scale of the challenge”.
The rest of the £1 billion for tutoring announced today will fund an extension to the existing 16-19 tutoring programme, expected to deliver around 700,000 courses each year.
Under the existing NTP, schools can access subsidised catch-up sessionsfrom a list of approved providers.
Those in disadvantaged areas also have the option to employ“academic mentors”, trained by Teach First, to deliver one-to-one andsmall group tutoring on site.
