The Government’s Catch-up programme

There is no doubt that school closures have had a devasting effect on children’s education. One 2020 study found that children locked down at home in the UK spent an average of only 2.5 hours each day doing schoolwork, and one fifth of pupils did no schoolwork at home, or less than one hour a day. Primary-aged pupils had lost 0.9 months learning in reading and 2.2 months in mathematics by the summer of 2020/21, and secondary-aged pupils had experienced a learning loss of around 1.2 months in reading. School closures have also impacted on children’s mental health, with 1 in 6 children having a probable mental health condition in 2020, up from 1 in 9 in 2017. We believe that school closures have been nothing short of a national disaster for children.

The Department must continue to establish the full effect of the pandemic on children and young people. This must consider the impacts felt by children from disadvantaged backgrounds and on the regional disparities of support offered. This must not be confined to solely academic factors but should also focus on understanding how children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing have been affected, as this is critical to academic attainment. All data should seek to identify where pupils with particular characteristics (including ethnicity, free school meals eligibility, or those with special educational needs) have been differentially impacted. The Department should utilise real-time data and the results of school and local authority assessments of pupils’ lost learning to better target catch-up and mental health support immediately, so education recovery is not ‘on hold’ or delayed while the latest data is being collated. Funding must be committed by the Government to tackle the digital divide and boost broadband infrastructure to ensure that all children have the support they need to catch up on lost learning. Where data already exists, significant funding must be committed to targeted catch-up interventions to tackle the growing educational inequalities that are leaving some children with worsening academic outcomes and life chances. (Paragraph 19) A spaghetti junction of funding

Stakeholders have expressed concerns over the sufficiency of the Government’s investment in the Catch-up Programme. The Department’s own annual report from 2020/21 rated the risk of its measures to address lost learning being insufficient as “critical/very likely”. The sector needs assurance of ongoing support to address the challenges of the pandemic and the long-term impact on children and young people. The education recovery programme is needed for the long-term, not for just two or three years.

We welcome the funding the Government has already committed to help pupils catch up, but we believe the existing funding arrangements for catch-up amount to a spaghetti junction of funding, piling more work on teachers and support staff who have needed to navigate multiple funding processes to access different streams of funding (Paragraph 27) 30 Is the Catch-up Programme fit for purposee

Teachers and school staff know their pupils and know what interventions are likely to bring the most benefit. The Catch-up Programme to date has been fragmented, and a complex bureaucratic system for applications may have hampered some schools’ ability to access some elements of the Government’s support as effectively as possible. The funding schemes should be simplified and merged into one pot for schools to access and spend where the recovery need is greatest. and any future catch-up initiatives should direct funding to schools using existing mechanisms for identifying disadvantage such as pupil premium eligibility and the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI), to ensure schools in the most disadvantaged regions receive more. Schools should also be held accountable for how they spend their catch-up funding. When carrying out inspections, Ofsted should be looking for evidence that catch-up activity has been effective. When inspecting school leadership and management, Ofsted should check that effective governance and scrutiny of resource allocation extends to catch-up funding. (Paragraph 28) Disadvantaged pupils and regional variations in learning loss

The impact of school closures and the pandemic has resulted in a reversal of the progress made in narrowing the attainment gap, with children in the North disproportionately affected. It is also alarming that children and young people in the North, particularly the North-East and Yorkshire and the Humber, have suffered greater learning loss during the last two years compared to many in the South. Nor is it acceptable that such striking variations exist between young people in the North who were able to take up the support offered by the National Tutoring Programme in its first year (59% of schools compared with upwards of 96% schools in the South). We discuss the performance of the NTP and its current provider Randstad in the next Chapter.

Rates of persistent absence remain concerning, and the number of ‘ghost children’ who are experiencing severe levels of absence from school remains far too high. The Government needs to do much more to get these children back in school, which is the best place to ensure they will be safe and reach their potential. The Department should also be publishing more regular, up-to-date data, on the number of persistently absent children, including data on children with special educational needs and disabilities.

The Department must take steps to address the issue of persistent absence and ensure no more children become ‘ghost children’. We welcome the Department’s formation of an ‘attendance alliance’ and its consultation on reducing avoidable absence in schools, however these children need tangible action now. The Department must urgently set out proactive measures, working with schools and local authorities, to get these pupils back into school. The Government should also implement, as a matter of urgency, a national register of children not in school, as recommended in our previous report Strengthening Home Education. (Paragraph 39) The National Tutoring Programme and Randstad

It is not clear that the National Tutoring Programme will deliver for the pupils that need it most. We expect full transparency about the operation of the National Is the Catch-up Programme fit for purposee 31 Tutoring Programme, including information on how many pupils are benefitting from the programme, and what the characteristics of those pupils are (for example, whether they are disadvantaged or have a special educational need or disability). It is crucially important that the Government ensures tutoring is working effectively in terms of catch-up, and that it measures and publishes statistics on the improvements in children’s attainment achieved by the tutoring programme. We expect these to be published and will continue to hold Randstad and the Department to account for this. This data is essential if we are to ensure that tutoring support is heavily targeted toward disadvantaged pupils and areas.

The Department must commit to publishing statistics on a half-termly basis on the number of starts under the National Tutoring Programme with a greater degree of granularity. This must include information on the proportion of children accessing the programme on a regional basis, and the data should be published in a way that has regard to disadvantage and special educational needs. This information should also be broken down for each tutoring provider. If the National Tutoring Programme fails to meet its targets for the number of pupils receiving tuition, and the proportion of these who are disadvantaged, by Spring, the Department should terminate its contract with Randstad and re-run the tendering process.

Currently it appears that the school-led tutoring pillar is more attractive than tuition partners or academic mentors (with 230,000 starts as of 1 December, compared to 52,000 and 20,000 respectively), although we have heard concerns about the quality assurance underpinning that part of the programme. The Department should ensure that all resources are focused on the school-led pillar to ensure more schools are able to access the National Tutoring Programme. The Department should also assess the accessibility of tutoring across the regions and create a quality assurance framework to enable schools to make informed decisions about the tutoring organisations or individuals they employ.

We heard that the Department’s plans to taper the subsidies for the National Tutoring Programme are a “real concern”, which may inhibit school take up in some of the most disadvantaged areas. Therefore, to ensure that it does not unfairly prevent schools in more disadvantaged areas from taking up the tutoring offer, the Department must also review the plans to reduce the subsidies to the three tutoring pillars and consider maintaining the existing subsidy rates in the most disadvantaged areas, until the data suggests these children have caught up with their learning.

The Department should commit to undertaking a review of the impact that Covid-19 has had on children with special educational needs and disabilities. (Paragraph 60) Mental health resilience and an extended school day

We are conscious that any extension to the school day would need to be carefully balanced so that staff workload and pupils’ energy are not negatively impacted. However, we are also persuaded that there is merit in extending opportunities for additional time spent on extra-curricular activities, including exercise and creative pursuits, to those children who may otherwise not enjoy those opportunities. (Paragraph 67) 32 Is the Catch-up Programme fit for purposee

The Department must introduce a pilot of optional extra-curricular activities for children to help improve academic attainment and wellbeing. The pilot should be trialled in areas of disadvantage across the country. If this pilot proves effective, the Department should include the necessary funding to support a wider provision in the next spending review bid.

There are some examples of positive collaboration between local private and state schools in terms of offering the use of sports centres or theatres to support enrichment activities which should be further encouraged. Primary and secondary state schools should also be encouraged to utilise local youth centres, local community groups and charities to help support schools in providing enrichment activities, so hardworking teachers and school staff are not impacted where possible.

Before the pandemic there were serious concerns about the mental health of our children and young people. The pandemic has exacerbated an existing crisis in mental health, with as many as 1 in 6 children aged 6–16 years old now suffering from a probable mental health condition. It is vital that swift action is taken to support all children and young people to build their resilience and ensure they get the support they need, when they need it.

The Department must fast-track its commitments to ensuring all schools have a designated mental health lead. All catch-up plans, including enrichment activities and longer school days, must include a specific role for activities that focus on mental health and wellbeing.

Throughout our inquiry, we have heard that pupils’ wellbeing and mental health have been one of the greatest challenges as schools return. All pupils should undergo a mental health and wellbeing assessment to understand the scale of the problem and schools may wish to direct some of the recovery funding to address mental health difficulties. They should be supported to invest in evidence informed interventions to help pupils. We know that Ofsted inspectors will be looking at how subject leaders and teachers have identified and responded to pupils’ learning gaps as a result of the pandemic. We would like Ofsted to make it clear in their guidance that they will also look for evidence that schools have sought to identify and respond to the mental health and wellbeing needs of their students.

The Government should introduce a levy on the profits of social media companies, and use the revenue derived from this to fund online harms and resilience training for pupils which could be distributed through schools. (Paragraph 78) Is the Catch-up Programme fit for purposee 33