So the Treasury won the battle. While Sir Kevan Collins called for £15 billion and the Department for Education reportedly asked for £10 billion for catch-up efforts, the Treasury allocated just £1.8 billion of extra funding in the Budget.
This takes the overall total offered towards catch-up funding to £4.9 billion.
It is certainly not nothing and the increase announced means that, according to the Education Policy Institute (EPI), the average allocation per pupil on catch-up rises from £310 to £490.
Far behind others
However, when compared with nations such as the Netherlands, where the EPI says around £2,100 per pupil has been allocated, or the United States (£1,800 per pupil), it appears to fall well short - a point made by David Laws, executive chairman of the EPI.
“While additional funding to support education recovery is welcome, this funding is only a quarter of the level of investment committed by other rich countries,” he said. “We need to see the government go much further to address the huge scale of learning losses.”
Budget 2021: What you need to know
This concern was echoed by Carole Willis, chief executive at the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), who said the long-term impact from this underfunding could be huge: “While additional funding for early years, schools and skills will help, this is a missed opportunity. Fixing the education ship now would mean avoiding life rafts further down the line.”
Many others had similar views, but it’s clear that unless something dramatic and unexpected happens when it comes to catch-up funding, that’s it as far as the government is concerned.
Secondaries prioritised
So what exactly have they announced and what does it mean for future catch-up efforts?
The key element of the new funding is that from the additional £1.8 billion made available, £1 billion will be allocated to the recovery premium fund over the next two academic years and that will be allocated using the same data as the pupil premium, such as eligibility for free school meals.
The Budget documents state this will be available for “the next two academic years for schools”, meaning it will be in place for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 academic years.
What is most notable about this is that while this funding is in place, the majority of this money is aimed at secondary schools, as the official Budget document makes clear: “Primary schools will continue to benefit from an additional £145 per eligible pupil [the existing rate], while the amount per eligible pupil in secondary schools will nearly double [£290].”
This increase for secondary schools means they could receive an average of around £70,000 in additional funding from the recovery premium - significantly more than the current funding that offers an average of £22,000.
This focus on boosting secondary school funding for catch-up efforts was made, the government said, because of “evidence showing the greater gaps in older pupils’ learning and the lower amount of time those pupils have left in education”.
Falling short
There is certainly a logic here and Patrick Cozier, headteacher at Highgate Wood School, said it would help continue work they are doing such as small group tutoring sessions in English and maths, additional seminars for Year 11 students preparing for GCSEs, revision sessions for Year 11 and Year 13 students and extra support for SEND students.
Despite this, he said the amount provided was still too little - and that the shortfall undermined the government’s own logic that older learners need the most help.
“By the measure of the government’s own expert Sir Kevan Collins, the amount needed was £15 billion. This falls a long way short of that. The last 18 months have seen the most disruption to the education of children in this country in our lifetime,” he said.
“The cost of repairing that damage and allowing schools to truly support children to catch up is much more than has been promised. We will continue to struggle to provide children with the catch up that is necessary.”
An ‘insult’ to primaries
Meanwhile, as noted, for younger learners in primary settings the amount offered remains the same at £145 per pupil, which will maintain the average per primary school at £6,000 - a notable disparity to secondary school funding.
Mark Chatley, the trust leader of Coppice Primary Partnership, said he understood the logic but that more for primary schools may have helped reduce the long-term impact of the pandemic on learning loss.
“It would have been good to perhaps see a little more balance, knowing that if primaries can lay the foundations really well, then there will be less for the secondary schools to ‘catch up’,” he added.
Meanwhile, primary headteacher Amanda Wilson was more unequivocal, calling it an “insult” to primary settings as it overlooks the important work they do in a pupil’s education journey.
“Primaries have to prepare children for secondary school so the more that can be invested early on, the more beneficial it would be to secondary schools as they can be sure the children have had the best support possible before coming into secondary school,” she said.
She added too that with the current tutoring set-up, much of the money offered through the recovery premium will just disappear to cover those costs.
“A lot of schools may be using it to offset the 25 per cent needed in order to fully utilise the school-lead tutoring grant and as such won’t really ever see that money. It’s pretty clear that primary education really isn’t that important to those in government.”
Lee Mason-Ellis, CEO of The Pioneer Academy, which includes 12 primary, junior and infant schools on its books, also raised concerns about this disparity in funding between phases and said more should be allocated and distributed equally between all settings.
“It is essential additional funding is provided to all sectors, including special, primary and secondary schools,” he said.
Freedom to target funds
Furthermore, he said that headteachers and academy leaders need “the freedom to target these additional funds effectively” and by being able to provide support that is “tailored to their pupil’s needs”.
This approach is also advocated by Professor Geraint Jones, executive director and associate pro-vice-chancellor of the National School of Education and Teaching, Coventry University, who said that “schools need to be trusted to make their own decisions”.
“Our youngest children are exhausted by the school day and need time to play - equally important is speech, language and literacy development,” he said.
“And while some older students will undoubtedly benefit from intensive tuition as they approach GCSEs, they also need to experience enrichment in the curriculum, which isn’t dictated by exams, especially after months given over to screens.
Adrian Packer, CEO of CORE Education Trust, said that focusing funding on “extracurricular opportunities and enrichment” to deliver on these aims was a key aspect of its catch-up strategy.
However, while these are noble aims, many leaders are wary of falling foul of the accountability system around this funding, and the government’s requirement that any recovery premium funding is used “effectively”, either by:
Given this, many schools may feel safer sticking to ideas outlined in the Education Endowment Foundation’s pupil premium guide such as professional development, academic support or solving non-attendance issues, which the government cites as acceptable uses.
The greatest gift
Of course, most schools will likely be targeting their funding in these areas as they work to offset the impact of the pandemic.
And while more cash to help with this is welcome - even if less than what was asked for - perhaps the best thing the government can really do for schools is ensure the pandemic’s impact does not grow any further.
Whether this means bringing back masks or social distancing to schools again remains to be seen, but what is key is to avoid a repeat of last year’s dithering in the autumn that led to a second lockdown in January.
As Steve Rippin, assistant headteacher and Sendco at Tapton School in Sheffield, sums up: “Any money in the budget is always welcome but if we can just get some normality and continue to do what we are doing - that is the best road to recovery.”
