The government has been accused of “moving the goalposts” on its flagship catch-up tutoring programme, after “confused guidance” over revised targets for the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) was sent to school leaders this week.
In an email sent to school leaders yesterday (2 March), Randstad, which runs the NTP, said it had received feedback that teachers may want to swap pupils out of a tuition block once it had started because the full 15-hour course of tuition “is not required”.
But the Department for Education’s original contract agreement with Randstad for the operation of the NTP set a target that 95 per cent of pupils who start a 15-hour tuition package under the tuition partners programme must complete the block.
Earlier this year Tes revealed that NTP tutors were running sessions for ‘ghost pupils’ who didn’t turn up. This was because of fears that if they removed pupils who repeatedly failed to attend sessions then they would fail to meet the target of 95 per cent target,
Further confusion was also sparked after the Randstad email stated that tuition partners on the scheme “were no longer required to ensure that 65 per cent of their tuition support is provided to pupils in receipt of pupil premium funding”.
However, a subsequent email sent to school leaders by the DfE today (3 March) said: “The NTP aim is to deliver a minimum of 65 per cent of tuition to disadvantaged pupils in receipt of pupil premium, and this remains a key focus for the programme given the higher learning loss among many disadvantaged pupils.”
One of the key performance indicators in the initial agreement between the DfE and Randstad stated: “At least 65 per cent of tuition packages are in schools that meet the national criteria for the NTP with pupils receiving pupil premium.”
The apparent revision of targets comes after Tes revealed that only 43,000 pupils had started the programme by the beginning of December - 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.
Ensuring pupils catch up after two periods of prolonged school closures in response to the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 was described by prime minister Boris Johnson as the government’s “biggest national challenge”.
But the Conservative chair of the Commons Education Select Committee, Robert Halfon, called on the government to “seriously consider” breaking its contract with Randstad last month over fears it is “not reaching the most vulnerable children in our communities”.
Moving targets for NTP
Labour’s shadow schools minister Stephen Morgan said the government was continuing “to move the goalposts as their flagship tutoring programme fails pupils”.
He added: “Confused guidance has seen tuition sessions delivered to empty classrooms, and watered-down targets to reach children receiving the pupil premium threaten life chances.”
Speaking to school leaders today, schools minister Robin Walker said there have been “challenges” with the rollout of the NTP, and the government “need to keep doing better”.
Delivering a presentation at a Schools North East event, he said: “I recognise there have been challenges in the early rollout of the NTP. We have listened to the feedback we have had from schools, it’s why we created the schools-based route, and it’s also why when we recognised there was not sufficient coverage of tuition partners we trebled the number of tuition partners in the North East.”
He added: “We want to work with you to make sure that this works in the long run and I think it’s really important to recognise we have achieved more in the first term of this year, in terms of tuition, than in the whole of the previous year, but we need to keep doing better.”
Commenting on the confusion over the 65 per cent of disadvantaged pupils target, Natalie Perera, chief executive of the Education Policy Institute (EPI), said that the easing of the target for providers seemed to be “fundamentally at odds with the government’s claim that it intends to retain it nationally”.
She added: “The requirement that two-thirds of pupils in the programme must be from disadvantaged backgrounds was in place for a reason: there is strong research evidence that poorer pupils have been the biggest losers from the pandemic, seeing greater attainment losses than their peers.”
John Nichols, president of The Tutors Association, said “clarity is needed” over the target.
He added: “It is unfortunate that Randstad has a reputation for confusion. We need to make the NTP as clear as possible for schools and tuition providers alike.”
Clarity over catch-up
Asked about the confusion, the DfE said that the 65 per cent target for the programme as a whole remained in place, but that it had been removed by Randstad for individual tuition partners.
Nick Brook, deputy general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, said: “The ambition of the National Tutoring Programme was to make tutoring available to all pupils that need it, not limited to those that families that can afford it.
“Clearly, there are children not in receipt of pupil premium funding that could benefit from such support. But with resources limited, this should remain in addition to, not instead of, additional support to those children from the least affluent backgrounds. Mixed messages from Randstad and the centre on this are unhelpful at best.”
A DfE spokesperson said: “The National Tutoring Programme is on track to deliver the ambitious target of two million tutoring courses to children this academic year - whilst prioritising tutoring for those children most in need of catch up.
“The contractual target to deliver 65 per cent of tutoring packages to disadvantaged pupils remains in place. Tutoring organisations have been given some operational flexibility to ensure the programme reaches all eligible schools - and ultimately as many children as possible - whilst ensuring disadvantaged children continue to be prioritised.”
Karen Guthrie, senior programme director of the NTP, said Randstad had made clear the focus of the programme should be on disadvantaged pupils and that she agreed with the need to ensure pupil premium pupils are considered as a priority cohort.
She said: “That is why we remain committed to the aim of the programme that 65 per cent of pupils accessing all tuition routes are in receipt of pupil premium. We will continue to work with schools, tuition partners and the Department of Education to ensure those pupils whose learning has been most impacted have access to tuition. We trust schools to make that decision.”
She added that Randstad was working to remove complexity in the programme, between the tuition and school-led pillar for all tuition partners, and added: “This is not about removing the focus on disadvantaged children, it’s about removing complexity.”
