The Education Secretary wrote to all schools over the bank holiday weekend informing them that the Department for Education intends to publish data on how individual schools are using the much maligned National Tutoring Programme. Nadhim Zahawi wrote:
“I appeal now, in particular to those schools that have not yet started to offer tutoring, to make sure that you do so as soon as possible this term — do not miss out on an opportunity to help pupils who could benefit now.
Starting this week, my department will contact those schools to offer tutoring support to discuss their plans and offer further support to ensure they can offer tutoring to their pupils this term.
As part of my desire to ensure greater transparency of the impact of the programme, I am planning to publish data on each school’s tutoring delivery at the end of the year alongside the funding allocations and numbers of pupils eligible for the pupil premium. I will also share this information with Ofsted.”
The National Tutoring Programme was introduced as the focal point of the DfE’s covid ‘recover’ plan, which the former ‘Catch Up’ Tsar, Sir Kevan Collins, deemed a “short-sighted and short term plan” and insufficient. It is not clear how Ofsted will be using the NTP data as use of the NTP is in no way a robust indicator of school performance.
This announcement has garnered a negative response from teaching unions, with Geoff Barton, General Secretary of ASCL, labelling the announcement as “ political grandstanding designed to distract from the mess the government has made of the National Tutoring Programme.”
Director of Schools North East, Chris Zarraga commented:
“The decision by DfE to publish data on NTP take-up is disappointing to say the least. It seems a pointless exercise designed to increase pressure on schools to utilise something that they had decided, for good operational reasons, wasn’t suitable for their settings. It fails to recognise the limitations of the tutoring programme or take into account the regional context schools work in.
The use of NTP data effectively as an accountability measure threatens to implement a one-size-fits-all strategy to catch-up. There is almost an assumption that if you aren’t using the NTP, then you aren’t utilising anything or doing any ‘catch up’ at all, which is nonsense. It comes across as needlessly confrontational, questioning the professional competence of our school leaders who have shown incredible professionalism and dedication throughout the pandemic.
NE schools recognise small group tutoring as an essential part of academic catch-up; indeed many schools in the region were already operating their own NTP-type solutions pre-pandemic, and continue to do so. The ‘league tables’ proposed by the SoS will merely show a map of the pre-existing regional tutor capacity and commitment to school-led solutions, rather than tell Ofsted or parents anything meaningful about a school’s catch-up provision. I can’t see how it will achieve anything positive, but it will certainly further pressurise and demoralise school staff who have been under tremendous pressure throughout the last 2 years and more.”
Currently, the DfE data shows that the engagement of North East schools with the NTP has increased from last year and is marginally above the national average. However, schools in the region still face difficulties accessing the tutors they need, with a complex system to navigate and significant additional workload pressures for teachers and admin teams. Schools North East have previously called on the government to remove obstacles to the delivery of support to students that need it most, and to remove the labyrinthine bureaucracy around accessing funds.
