National Tutoring Programme (NTP) tutors are running sessions for “ghost pupils” who don’t turn up due to confusion over whether students who repeatedly fail to show up for sessions are allowed to be removed from the programme, Tes has learned.
Senior school leaders have told Tes that NTP tuition providers are saying they cannot remove students that have started a block of tuition from the scheme and replace them with another pupil, even when the initial student refuses to attend sessions.
The body representing providers, The Tutors’ Association (TTA), told Tes that some providers are keen to avoid swapping students partway through a block of tuition because they are worried about missing targets set for them by the firm contracted by the Department for Education to run the NTP, Randstad.
TTA president John Nichols says that Randstad has asked providers to hit a key performance indicator (KPI) that states that at least 95 per cent of pupils who start a tuition block under the scheme follow it through to completion of a 15-hour block.
It says some partners believe that if they switch a student off the scheme part way through their block, this won’t be counted as a “completion”, whereas if they are kept on the course, they can be deemed to have completed it, even if they don’t consistently attend.
However, the DfE said that students could be swapped out of their sessions if there was a “good reason” for them not to complete a package, and said that this should be assessed on a case by case basis. It also said funding should only be received for a session if a pupil receives tuition.
The news comes a week after Karen Guthrie, NTP director at Dutch multinational firm Randstad, which was contracted by the government to run the programme this year, said at a Commons Education Select Committee that 300,000 pupils had now “accessed” the NTP overall.
However, this number includes the pupils who have received support under the school-led tuition strand - which is funded directly by ring-fenced DfE grants to schools and is not managed by Randstad.
Randstad told Tes last month that only 43,000 pupils had started the programme so far this year - just 8 per cent of the 524,000 pupils the DfE contracted the firm to reach via the tuition partner route by the end of this academic year.
Sessions being run with ‘ghost pupils’
One secondary school assistant headteacher said tutors at the school she works in were being forced to run classes with “ghost pupils” in them and called the situation “madness.”
She told Tes: “Once we enter a child as having tuition, we are now being told we cannot remove them for the 15 hours they’re signed up for.
“This money is meant to be about hardest to reach pupils with the most significant gaps in their education, so obviously you will have some kids who don’t buy into it. On a practical level, some students leave the school.
“But we’re genuinely in the situation where tutors are sat there for an hour with ghost pupils. It’s a complete waste.”
She added that it hadn’t always been the case that the school was unable to swap pupils and that previously she had been able to.
Similarly, a head of learning at a school in Bristol told us she had been told “unequivocally” by her school’s provider that the school couldn’t swap students in and out of the programme once they’d started a block of tuition.
She said: “We’ve got significant amounts of staff chasing students to attend and still they’re not turning up. It’s very frustrating as we’d put someone in who was more interested if we could.
“The scheme is useful for those engaging and the tutor is brilliant, but it’s the process and admin that doesn’t work.”
The issue does not appear to be universal, as some teachers have said they have been able to swap students in and out of the programme without problems.
Guidance needs ‘urgently clarifying’
Stephen Morgan, Labour MP and shadow schools minister, said that guidance over whether students could be removed from the scheme needed “urgently” clarifying, and described the situation as “farcical.”
He said: “The government’s incompetence has led to the farcical situation where tutors are teaching empty classrooms, failing children and taxpayers.
“Ministers must urgently clarify guidance for providers and address wider access issues if their failing flagship scheme is to have any hope of reaching the children who need it most.”
He added that the Labour Party had set out a costed plan that would deliver “small group tutoring”, alongside an expanded range of clubs and activities and called on the government to “match this ambition.”
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), called the situation “ridiculous.”
He said: “The government has succeeded in taking the relatively simple concept of tutoring and overcomplicated it to the point where we now have the ridiculous scenario of tutors arriving to teach empty classrooms.
“Schools select students they believe will most benefit from the one-to-one support offered by the NTP but not all young people will be in a position to fully benefit and, in such circumstances, there should be some flexibility for substitutions to be made.
“We have said from the outset that schools are best placed to deliver tutoring as they know their students’ needs better than anyone else and can operate a system free of the red tape that mires the NTP.
“It is time the government recognised this and gave schools more funding to deliver tutoring but, if it is intent on making the NTP work, it needs to be more flexible in order to benefit as many students as possible.”
Providers are ‘confused’
Mr Nichols said that some providers were not allowing swaps between students because they were confused over whether they were allowed to do so.
He said: “Some providers are of the opinion that even if a student doesn’t attend any sessions, it counts as a completion if they aren’t removed, despite the fact that they didn’t attend any sessions.
“If you change the student halfway through the programme, many providers are interpreting this as not counting as ‘completion’, and so they’re keen not to do that. Some providers appear willing to disregard this requirement but there is confusion over whether this is allowed or not.”
Mr Nichols added that the TTA is looking to work with Randstad “constructively” to fix these sorts of issues and hoped the association could use its sector knowledge to help ensure the NTP was fit for purpose and a good use of government funds.
A DfE spokesperson said: “Tutoring plays an integral role in supporting pupils to catch up on any lost learning and we’re already seeing children making encouraging progress as our unprecedented education recovery support rolls out across the country.
“A tutoring session is only counted - and so funding can only be claimed - if a pupil is receiving tuition. Where schools have good reason not to complete a package, for example, if pupils are absent for a prolonged period, the remaining offer can and should still be used by other children in the school.”
It said schools should contact their tuition provider first of all if they want to switch students on the programme but should contact Randstad if they are having difficulties doing so.
A Randstad spokesperson said: “We advise schools to work closely with their chosen Tuition Partner to schedule sessions that best suit the availability of pupils receiving tuition.”
